BRINGING IN THE HARVEST

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 125, 23 November 1943, Page 4

BRINGING IN THE HARVEST

Harvesting waits for no man, and in j an emergency it is necessary to take unusual measures to provide the required labour. Steps are now being taken to call up Territorials to assist with harvesting operations in the next! five months, and arrangements are also being made to utilise the services of secondary school pupils on farms. These are wartime emergency measures, and what is being done should not be regarded as a precedent applying when the emergency is less pressing. Also there must be sufficient safeguards against abuses. There is reasonable ground for criticism of the suggestion that for secondary school pupils the period of their availability should be extended beyond the ordinary term of the school holidays. Headmasters have stressed the ill effects that this might have on -the careers of the pupils. If this danger exists, every endeavour should be made to overcome it, especially in view of the fact that many boys are approaching the age at which they will volunteer for the Air Force or the Navy or be called up for service in the Army. Many of them face an interruption of their/ studies at a critical stage in their careers, and this makes it all the more important that there should be the minimum of interference before they pass out of the secondary schools. In regard to the use of Territorials for harvesting, a possible point of criticism may be that men on soldiers' pay will be working alongside men who are free of military discipline and are receiving different rates of pay. In principle this is wrong, and it can only be

justified by the urgent need for obtaining labour to complete the harvest. The best approach to the labour problem, both permanent and seasonal, is for the Army authorities to release as many.men as possible and thus make them available for direction to essential industries by the National Service Department. This would provide a much more satisfactory basis for the admittedly difficult task of finding labour for urgent jobs and it would do away with any suggestion of differential treatment as between soldiers and free labour. It may not be possible to effect this reorganisation quickly, but the general aim should be, not to call on the Army for work, but to release the men who can be spared so that they can be fitted into industry.