The Press FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1942. Release of Farm Labour

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23740, 11 September 1942, Page 4

The Press FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1942. Release of Farm Labour

The War Cabinet’s latest decision about the release of farm labour from military training, as briefly announced by the Minister of National Service, is a disconcerting one. Not least disconcerting is the apparent fact that district production councils could see that a scheme in which they had been given a responsible function was not working, but were not allowed to see that the Government was preparing to scrap it. In mid-July, the Minister of Primary Production for War Purposes described arrangements, to take effect immediately, in furtherance of plans to work out a proper balance between industrial and military ■ require-, ments. Farmers in the new call-up were to be held on the farm; others were to be sent back at once from the camps; and an efficient classification of essential labour would follow. The need for these measures was evident both in the visible disorganisation and delay of farm work and in certain demands for increased production. At the end of July Mr Poison returned t) the subject. The Government had decided that it must act at once; it had therefore taken • the steps just described. But Mr Poison emphasised that, in pegging farm labour temporarily and swinging 3000 to 4000 men straight back to the farms, it had gone “a long way “ beyond what the Armv would “have liked,” and that these measures were in fact merely provisional. Of the shape in which the Government would finally cast its plans to reach balanced efficiency in the use of manpower, however, Mr Poison said nothing. He said nothing, either, to suggest that the production councils would have a less important function in them than in the provisional scheme, or that this, and their place in it, were already in danger. But by the beginning of this month it was becoming alarmingly clear that the provisional scheme, instead of working better, was working very badly. Numbers of release recommendations were being politely rejected 'here and totally ignored there by the Army., What one man called an “ understanding ” with the Army was called by another a “ ruling ” by the Army, that fully trained oversea draft men should not be released. Whichever it was,' the councils knew little or nothing about it. But whichever it was, they ought to have known, because they ought to have been consulted. The War Cabinet’s decision goes one better. Appeals for 'men now under call-up will be “ very carefully “ considered,’’ if primary production would be adversely affected by taking them. Men attached to oversea units »or the New Zealand ’ Army Tank Brigade, however, cannot be released, unless ,in “ very excep- “ tional circumstances and the same applies to single men, in grade I and between 21 and 41, “ even though . . . not attached to “ oversea units.” It would be foolish to jump to the conclusion that there is no good reason, for this abrupt change of policy, which is what it is; or that there is no other and better reason than the one Mr Poison suggested, when he said that the Army did not like what was being done. But the Government’s good and sufficient reason, if it has one, requires some statement and some defence. It has to be strong enough to explain why a policy that the Government accepted and began to pursue, seven weeks ago, has been abandoned: and why the production councils, which were called to the Government’s aid and into Its confidence to begin with, have been treated like fools and dupes.