MANPOWER POSITION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1942, Page 4

MANPOWER POSITION

PRODUCTION CAMPAIGN FARM LABOUR FORCES. STATEMENT BY MINISTER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, September 24. “The manpower position will. I hope, be no worse,” the Minister of Primary Production for War Purposes, Mr Polson, said to the Canterbury Production Councils at a special conference in Christchurch tonight. “The industry cannot stand more men being called up. Indeed too many have gone already. It might be possible to supplement our farm labour forces from some other sources.’’ The Minister said no statement by him had been unhonoured and no promise unfulfilled. Since the inception of the production campaign a very great number of men had been released from the army and a great many more prevented from going into the army, and that was being continued. There had been admittedly a slight pause, due to the gravity of the war news, coupled with the shifting of men to new localities under the regrouping plan that had developed, and he wished to remind them that the battle of the Solomons was not finished, that the advance on Stalingrad was daily more menacing, and that the activities of Rommel, while temporarily in check, were by no means ended. There had been demands for an enormous number of reinforcements from more than one front that the army had to meet. HELP FOR FARMERS. “In spite of these things, the farmers will get men to help them in their seasonal operations,” said Mr Polson. They might not be the special men the farmers wanted, but they would be good farm hands. Men would continue to bo released on leave for several weeks to put the crops .in. They would be similarly released to harvest those crops and get them in, and. as requested by the farmers and recommended by production councils, without going through the routine of the appeal boards shearers would be released for the maximum period of three months.

If there had been some dislocation in certain places when the call for reinforcements came, it had not to be wondered at. The Army was unwilling, indeed unable, to let trained men go. On the direction of the appeal boards men would continue to be released. Nevertheless, the responsibility of seeing that everybody possible was trained rested with the Army and the Government, said the Minister Though he had taken the responsibility on his own shoulders of recommending the release of many thousands of men to help production and had stood up to that responsibility, the time might come when everybody who could handle a rille would be needed on the fighting front. AN EXPLANATION. Explaining why farming had not been declared an essential industry, Mr Polson said the association of farmer and worker was too intimate to join the two together if they found that they were mutually unsuitableto one another. Among many suggestions by farmers and others was one that crops on poorer lands should be subsidised. The Government was looking at that, but meanwhile it was more economic to increase crops on the better land. That applied, of course, chiefly to wheat and other grains which could be grown on marginal lands. They had to look carefully at any plan which might add to the manpower problem. Mistakes would be made, said Mr Polson, but he hoped that the production councils would not begin by discrediting his statements, but would rather try to help than criticise publicly. They must continue to play the game with the Army at all costs. They could not take trained fit A men designed for overseas out of the Army and let the fighting forces down. They were all agreed about that. The rest had to imitate their enemies and tighten their belts. They had to win or die.