TRUCK IMPRESSMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 6, 8 January 1942, Page 9

TRUCK IMPRESSMENT

SYSTEM CRITICISED

CANTERBURY FARMERS

(0.C.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Concern, lest the national welfare should be jeopardised by the system ; of impressing farm and other trucks for the Army is expressed in a statement issued after a meeting of the emergency committee of the Farmers' Union (North Canterbury) in Christchurch yesterday. Mr. R. G. Bishop presided. j "The committee," the statement reads, "received with considerable disquiet the report of extensive impress- ■ ttient of farmers' trucks at the approach of the season when they are most greatly needed on the farm, that is, the harvest season. "The committee discussed the situation with Mr. T, H/kangford (appeal authority), and the information which they were able to obtain from him did nothing to dispel their anxiety. It wouldseem that all the best trucks were being impressed for Army use, ' and from information received by the committee it was believed that many of these trucks \vere simply wasting, as they were being- kept standing idle Without sufficients skilled attention, so that probably many of them would not be in an. efficient condition for service should an emergency arise. ' "The committee learned also that not toniy with farm trucks but in industry generally trucks had been impressed regardless of the service which they were performing\ and in tnany cases regardless of the fate of the industries and institutions dependent on them. There seemed to be no reasonable regard to the national interest or ;}the national requirements, but appar : ently.the trucks w^re impressed entirely on their. suitability "for Army purposes and regardless of "what national injury, th,eir. impressment might' cause. "With the knowledge of the disruption being caused "in the: farming industry by this manner of impressment the committee feels: that the national welfare will be greatly jeopardised •unless this system is amended. "They also are of opinion that if these trucks are necessary for military ■*■■ purposes they can "be more readily available and their maintenance in efficient condition more satisfactorily attended to if left in the hands of their civilian owners with the responsibility on those owners of making them available for Army services whenever required rather than lying rusting as at jpresent. "The committee considers that this 'could be secured by the proper development of the Lines of Communication companies as already functioning. . : ..

"The committee understands that some military opinion strongly favours ?this cause,''