NO USELESS JOBS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 66, 19 March 1943, Page 5

NO USELESS JOBS

FOR MEN IN FORCES

GOVERNMENT'S ATTITUDE

It was not the Government's wish that one man should be kept in an unnecessary job, and if there were unnecessary jobs in the Forces the sooner the men holding them got out the»better, declared the Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser) in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon, when he replied to a complaint made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Holland) that the number of men proposed in the War Cabinet's plan for use on the Temporary Staff was too high. Not one man who was redundant would be kept, said Mr. Fraser. No man could be more helpful" in trying to readjust the forces to meet the manpower requirements than General Puttick, Commodore Sir Atwell Lake, and Air Commodore Goddard. They had endeavoured to interpret the will of the House and to release such men as they were able to release, but they had also insisted on maintaining the efficiency of their forces and that was their job. They would be betraying their trust if they did not do that. Masses of military material and equipment had to be looked after, and that «. "counted" for a good many of the men that were required. The Leader of the Opposition had stated that there were 40,000 single men in industry in New Zealand. That statement had received wide publicity and it had to be contradicted, said the Prime Minister. There were 40,000 Grade 1 men still in industry, but 27,000 of them were married and only 13,000 were single men. They were doing work that was regarded as essential, and had gone through the usual process of appeal boards.