RELEASE FROM FARMS

Evening Star, Issue 23915, 19 June 1941, Page 8

RELEASE FROM FARMS

APPEAL BOARD COMPLAINT OF NON-CO-OPERATION (P.A.) AUCKLAND, June 19. , The opinion that the farming community was not giving the assistance it should to the appeal boards in arranging for the release of men for military service was expressed at a sitting of tbo No. 1 Appeal Board by the chairman (Mr Orr Walker, S.M.) during the hearing of a farm worker’s appeal. The Chairman said that in the last war every assistance was given by the farmers to release men. “ The main objective now, as far as I can see, is that the farming community is bent on seeing that nobody is taken off the farms,” he added. A witness stated that the proportion of men taken from the farming industry was higher than from other sections of the community. Mr A. M. Samuel, a member of tho board, disagreed, stating that a largo number of appeals on behalf of farmers had been treated generously. He said that a bitter attack had been made on a decision by the board in a»published letter signed by A. E. Robinson, secretary of the Auckland Executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. It was unfortunate that the letter had followed closely on the dismissal of an appeal in which the appellant had been represented by a prominent member of the farming community. “As an impartial judicial body we occupy a responsible posit!oh,” said Mr Samuel, “ and we will do our job according to our lights.”