HOME GUARD.

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 January 1942, Page 4

HOME GUARD.

[to the editor.] Sir, —With reference to the training of the Home Guard, a strange situation has recently come to. my notice. A young married man employed in an essential industry has been an enthusiastic member of the Guard since its establishment. He is keen to learn more to fit himself for whatever may lie ahead, and, along with a number of others on the Coast, has been selected to enter a training camp for a short course of instruction. He informed his employer of this, and was told that he could not go; that if he could be done without for a fortnight he could be done without for good i and that later, when he was called up for service by ballot, an appeal was not likely to succeed if it was found that he had been released for a fortnight. Now. where are we going to get, if that attitude is to be taken? This man’s work, like that of so many others who are in the Home Guard, is essential. but if he is prepared to give so much of his own time to training, it would surely not be impossible to arrange for leave for a week or fortnight to fit him for a much more essential job when and if, the need arises.—Yours, etc., GUARDSMAN.