FIGHT AND PRODUCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 March 1943, Page 3

FIGHT AND PRODUCE

AMERICA’S POSITION SIZE OF THE ARMY. WARNING BY LABOUR LEADER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WASHINGTON, February 28. The Washington correspondent of the United Press of America, says that the president of the American Federation of Labour, Mr Green, said that organised labour is prepared to oppose any unreasonable plan for stripping industry of skilled workers to build up an excessively large army. The Government must decide now whether the cause of war will be better served by taking 1,000,000 or more men from industry and putting them in uniforms, or by using these men to produce ships and munitions. Indefinite millions of uniformed men cannot be transported to the fighting fronts. The size of the army should not be determined by theoretical standards, but by ability to transport soldiers to the front and keep them supplied for offensive warfare. If the present army plans are followed production will decrease in 1943, even if womanpower is mobilised, nonessential industries limited and other emergency measures taken. Decreased production would be fatal. The United States should not measure her army by British, Russian, or German standards, because her war job is different. She must not only fight, but produce for her own and the Allied armies.