DUTY TO PERFORM

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 44, 20 August 1941, Page 9

DUTY TO PERFORM

APPEAL BOARD'S ATTITUDE

INDISPENSABILITY MUST BE

SHOWN

(P.A.) DUNEDIN, August 19. An admission before the Armed Services Appeal Board that 22 casual boilermakers had been dismissed from the Hillside workshops during'the'past few weeks was made by Mr. W. I». McEvoy, workshops manager, when appealing on behalf of the Director of National Service for John Desmond Fairley and Roy Winifred Nieper, boilermakers, employed at Hillside. Mr. McEvoy said he had no other course than to appeal, but admitted that if he had not received instructions from the Director of National Service he was doubtful whether he 'would have appealed for the men himself. In response to questions, Mr. McEvoy said that 22 casual boilermakers had recently been dismissed because there had been no work offering in the past three months because of shortage of materials. He admitted that there would be no difficulty in replacing both reservists with the casual boilermakers who had recently been discharged. Many of these casual employees were first-class men, and had long experience. Mr. A. N. Haggitt, who represented the Crown, commented that it seemed extraordinary that these men of military age had to be retained when casual boilermakers were discharged. "Do you find any of these young men refusing to be appealed for?" Mr. Haggitt asked. "Yes," Mr. McEvoy replied. "I had one today who asked not to be appealed for." "I am surprised that there are not more," Mr. Haggitt said. "The position is not at all satisfactory as it stands," said the chairman of the board, Mr. Bartholomew. "It is the board's task to discover whether the men appealed for are essential. On the evidence we are by no means satisfied with the case put forward, and the appeals will be adjourned till next sitting of the board, when we shall have to have more evidence showing that the services of the men are indispensable." j