Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1941. HELPING THE WAR EFFORT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 December 1941, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1941. HELPING THE WAR EFFORT.

r piIERE is reason to believe that insufficient account has- yet been taken of some aspects of the, question of mobilising the total industrial resources of the Dominion directly or indirectly in furtherance of the war effort. Within the last few days attention has once again been called, in the columns of the “Times-Age,” to the position in this respect as it stands in the Wairarapa. A correspondent (Mr R. C. Jordan), whose letter appeared on Tuesday, pointed out that of machinery which might be used in making minor munition parts, reconditioning vehicles and other work, a certain amount is already standing idle in this district and more is being thrown idle.’

To this it has been added by Mr A. J. Drew, Engineering Instructor at the Wairarapa College, that while a certain amount of work connected with the country’s war effort lias been done in the well-equipped College workshop—the making of internal gauges and Morse keys—an offer by the pupils and their instructor to undertake, during the holidays and without pay, any war work assigned to them has been turned down by the Government.

With regard not only to the public-spirited offer of the Wairarapa College classes, but to the position as a whole in this district, and presumably in others, it is possible to agree with Mr Drew that it is up to the Government to indicate what is wanted. That there is no usefid war work on which the skilled labour and machinery available in the Wairarapa, and in other districts similarly, circumstanced, could be employed is a conclusion not only dismal, but unconvincing. It is, of course, recognised that in regard to some classes of work which otherwise it would be* higjily desirable to undertake, or to extend, in this country there are difficulties —in certain instances insuperable difficulties —of organisation or a lack or scarcity of materials. Taking account, however, of the enormously .wide scope of war requirements and of the fact that the maximum output that can be attained from the total resources and by the total effort of the British Empire and its Allies is less than could be desired, it seems hardly possible to justify failure at any point to utilise in some way machinery and skilled labour wherever they are available.

At a minimum an immediate and comprehensive survey of the whole position should be made by competent experts with a view to the fullest practicable employment of all the industrial resources of the Dominion. The point has been made that it is desirable on a number of grounds that war industries should be dispersed, within reason, as widely as possible. Apart from questions of the direct absorption of displaced labour and that of the housing of workers and their families, account has to be taken of the danger of enemy attack and of the advisability of setting limits to the damage that might be done by attack in any one area. All of the principal belligerent countries have adopted the policy of a wide dispersal of their vital industries. It is of interest, too, that in the United States, long before it had entered the war, the production of munitions was organised, not only in great industrial centres, but in many small towns.

•A considerable amount of war production is being carried out in New Zealand, but that everything that might be done and ought to be done in this way is being done seems wholly improbable. The question of making the fullest possible use of industrial resources —human and material —in all parts of the country is not parochial, but of the gravest national import. In an emergency like the present there can be no excuse for allowing any industrial resources that might be used to stand unutilised.