TRAINING A FLEET RESERVE.

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 33, 8 August 1923, Page 5

TRAINING A FLEET RESERVE.

A suggestion that the Government should establish a reserve ■of trained men from amongst the rank 3of the fishermen was made in the House of Representatives last night. When the Fisheries Amendment Bill )™ s "mlev consideration, Sir John Luke (Wellington North) asked whether the Government would not assist fishermen to purchase a trawler, the cost to bs met by instalments. Trawlers could be obtained cheaply in the Old Country now. J The Minister of Marine (the Hon. G. •T. Anderson) said he could not sive a favourable^ answer. Wherever Australasian Governments had purchased trawlers it had resulted in failure. This

was a. matter for private enterprise, and trawling was very successfully prosecuted in the North.

Mr. E. J. Howard (Christchurch South) suggested that the matter should be looked at from the point of view of defence. Trawler crews might be trained as reservists, and be paid an economic wage which would sustain them when trawling was slack. "You can make a soldier very quickly," said Mr. Howard, "but you cannot train a, man for the sea so quickly as a red coat who _is to go into the trenches. We are .looking at this question from the point of view of how many fish we can get ashore instead of the number of boys training for the sea."

"I congratulate the hon. member on his suggestion," remarked Mr. Massey. "It is the best he has made in this House. (Laughter.) Ido not know that I can do much. I cannot trust to my own judgment, but I promise this, that when at Home I shall look into the prices and particulars of trawelrs and bring information back with me."