RELEASE OF FARM LABOURERS

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23360, 20 June 1941, Page 8

RELEASE OF FARM LABOURERS

—♦ — WORK OF APPEAL BOARDS

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, June 19. The opinion that the farming community was not giving the'assistance it should to appeal boards in arranging for the release of men lor military service was expressed at a sitting of thq No. 1 Armed Forces Appeal Board by the chairman (Mr C. R. Orr Walker, S.M.) during the hearing of a farm worker’s appeal. The chairman said that in the last war every assistance was given by farmers to release men. "The mam objective now, as far as I can see, is that the farming community is bent on seeing that nobody is. taken off the farms," he added. A witness said that the proportion of men taken from the farming industrjy was higher than from other sections of the community. Mr A. M. Samuel, a member of the board, disagreed, stating that a large number of appeals on behalf of farmers had been treated generously. He said a bitter attack had been made on a decision by the board in a published letter signed by A. E. Robinson, secretary of the Auckland executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. It was unfortunate that the letter had followed closely on the dismissal of an appeal in which the appellant had been represented by a prominent member of the farming community. "As an impartial, judicial body we' occupy a responsible position," said Mr. Samuel. "We will do our job according to our lights.”