PRIMARY PRODUCTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 July 1942, Page 2

PRIMARY PRODUCTION

MEN TO BE TAKEN FROM ARMY • STATEMENT BY MINISTER. THE PROBLEM OF MANPOWER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “We will have to take men from the Army because there is nowhere else we can get them and we hope to build up farm production by bringing back to primary industry essential men now in the Army, sate, the Minister of Primary Production for War Purposes, Mr Polson, when he addressed the annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union in Wellington yesterday. It was important that these things be done at once, he said. , , Mr Polson said that they had one aim, and one aim only—that was to carry on farmproduction in a way that would contribute to the winning of the war. While they might be asked to make sacrifices, farmers would not be asked to do anything unreasonable. Besides making provision for additional war demands, New Zealand must continue to export as much as possible in order to maintain the country’s economy. “The first problem is manpower, said Mi Polson “We cannot ca»ry on .production unless we do something about manpower, and we are getting on with that job.” He had pointed out to the War Cabinet that a balance must be struck between civil and Army requirements. He had recommended •the pegging of manpower on the. farms. Cabinet had said they would peg manpower and ‘would get back from the Army men necessary to carry out the programme of farm production. “We sent word to the Army to return al. men who are farmers or farm workers, he continued. “Here there was another dilficultv. In manv cases the men do not want to go back, qnd the responsibility is on the Armv to send them back. It is causing some consternation in the Army, and .seme Ofllcers say that it will deplete st t l h e ” t gt } 59 per cent. My answer to that is that if half of their men are farmers, then there are far too many farmers in the Army.