MANPOWER NEEDS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 172, 3 May 1943, Page 4

MANPOWER NEEDS

VEGETABLES FOR AUSTRALIA.

USE OF ARMY LABOUR PLANNED PLIGHT OF PRIMARY INDUSTRY. (Special Australian Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 10.0 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Many Australian vegetable farms are deserted and hundreds of acre's crops are rotting on the ground, according to newspaper reports. This is an effect of the severe shortage of manpower which is being increasingly felt thj’oufgh Australia’s primary industries. Steps are to be taken immediately by the limited use of Army labour to prevent the wastage of vegetable crops, and a widening demand is being made for stronger Government policy on, the Australian food front generally. “Three basic things support the nation at war —armies, munitions and food,” comments “The Sydney Sun” editorially. “The first of these is food because if the food supply fails the soldiers cannot fight and munitions workers cannot work.”

Advocating the establishment of a food ministry the paper adds: “Without such direction deterioration of our production and the transport of food Will continue. We will reach a stage when not only will our own people be rationed in essential foods —but the people of Britain, whom we have engaged to help, Avill lack oven rationed butter.”

From many quarters come pleas for a modification of Mr Curtin’s firm stand that the demands of the armed forces for reinforcements must remain Australia’s burning consideration regarding manpower. A statement on the question has been made by Mr A. W. Fadden (Leader of the Opposition) who said: "I am not so foolish as to suggest a large-scale withdrawal of men from the fighting services for rural activities, but what I do suggest is that the manpower position of the food-produc-inf industries has been allowed to drift to such a stage that Mr Curtin must take immediate action.

“The most important of the recent moves by the Government on the food front is the .launching of a scheme for increased mechanisation of dairy farming. The pooling of all agricultural machinery will he part of a plan aimed at ensuring continuity of production by growing and conserving fodder crops. By increased.mechanisation 80 men are expected to he .able to cope with the Avork formerly requiring 500. A further plan to subsidise costs of ploughing may also be considered advisable as a means of assisting the output. Some'commentators believe that if a • plan to assist the Commomvealth man- j poAver by bringing a United States labour corps to Australia is put into effect, the Americans will be largely employed on the food front—principally in food processing. One outcome *of the rural manpower, shortage has been a heavy increase in the rabbit pest oil'pastoral properties, says a writer in the “Sydney Morning Herald.” A writer suggests that this is so serious in Ncav South Wales as to threaten the sheep-carrying canacity of the State. The comparatively few trappers who are remaining at work have been making small fortunes, as rabbit skins coihmand good prices but sufficient manpower is not available to keep the pest in check.