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Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 203, 27 August 1943, Page 4

WANTS £9 WEEKLY

TO MAINTAIN A HOME RETURNED SOLDIER'S VIEW "If you had been through what I have been through you would wipe the Manpower Committee off the face of the earth," said Dsnnis Anthony Davey to Mr. F. H. Levien, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court this morning when charged with failing to accept employment as directed by the Manpower Committee and continue in it.

Mr. T. G. Fielder, assistant manpower officer, said Davey was aged 35, and had been demobilised on medical grounds after serving overseas. He had then gone to work on the wharves, and later to the Amalgamated Brick and Pipe Company, where he had been reported for absence. He gave as his excuse that the house in which he had been living at Henderson had been sold and he had shifted into the city, where he had taken up casual work on the wharves again. He applied for permission to terminate his employment with the brick company, but this had been refused, and an appeal had been allowed on condition that he accepted other essential work. He had then been directed to James Hardy, fibrolite manufacturers, where he had worked two hours, then walked out and gone back to the wharves. When interviewed by a manpower officer Davey said he refused to accept a job at less than £9 a week, and Hardy's were to pay him only £4 18/. Giving evidence, Davey said he could not keep his home and family under £9 a week. He had a wife and two children. He couldn't see where making fibrolite cases was essential work. "I know what it is to wait in the front line for meat and ammunition." he said. Mr. Levien pointed out to defendant that he was in another army now. The case would be adjourned for a week to give him an opportunity of complying with the Manpower Committee's direction. If he did not comply he would be punished as he deserved.