USE OF MAN-POWER

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20987, 14 December 1939, Page 8

USE OF MAN-POWER

Mr W. E. Barnard, a member of the Defence Council, denies that the Government caucus has discussed a plan for conscription for the New Zealand forces, but it seems probable that such a discussion will take place shortly, since there is every indication that voluntary enlistments will fall short of the required numbers. The second echelon is being filled very slowly, and if the Government adheres to its policy of leaving all essential men in the reserved occupations it is doubtful whether the quota will be reached when the next draft goes into camp, presumably in January. Even now many men who can ill be spared from the primary producing industries have received their call to service. In the last batch medically examined in the Waikato were numbers of men trained in dairy industrial work, including several key men in dairy factories. These men are willing to serve their country and deem it their duty to do so, but whether in view of the need for national efficiency they should be drafted into the army at this early stage is another matter. The dairy factories in particular are having the utmost difficulty in securing staff sufficiently trained to maintain the quality of produce. Many of the smaller factories are, in fact, operating with only one or two trained men and the remainder of the staffs are unskilled. Whatever the objections to conscription may be, there is no doubt that it would make possible the more efficient utilisation of the country’s man-power, besides ensuring a steady stream of recruits for the army. According to Mr Savage, conscription will be a subject for discussion at the Easter conference of the Labour Party. The Prime Minister has indicated that if conscription is invoked it will not be applied first to man-power. It can scarcely be forgotten, however, that wealth has long since been conscripted in the form of taxation. In this way everyone in the country has been paying almost to the limit of his capacity, and there are few directions in which wealth can be further conscripted without interfering with production and upsetting the country’s economy generally. Wealth, indeed, is always conscripted early for the prosecution of a war campaign, and not infrequently for the furtherance of policies in times of peace.