MINISTRY OF SUPPLY

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 December 1942, Page 6

MINISTRY OF SUPPLY

MANUF'ACTURKRS’ comment

WELLINGTON, December 23. Commenting on the reorganisation of the Ministry of Supply, the Secretary of the New Zealand. Manufacturers’ Federation says it is certainly gratifying to manufacturers to read such a bold and clear statement of the importance of supply as a factor in this war, as coming from a member of the War Cabinet and political leader ..who holds such an important place in the Government as Mr Sullivan does to-day. The manufacturers will also apnreciate the definite nature of the Minister’s administrative set up, apart altogether from the men. The decision Which has existed in the past, partly because of departmental routine and partly through there being no clearly defined line of function between certain sections of the Department, should disappear. The direct channel of approach from any particular departmental officer concerned, through the appropriate Controller and executive officer to the Minister himself, is fairly clearly established in the new set up, whether it be on the question of production or supply, or price, or other form of control. He said that the Minister’s statement emphasised the importance of production within New Zealand itself, and a necessary corollary to that was the recognition of the position of our industries as a major factor in the war effort. The problems of production naturally involved the attendant problems of manpower and supplies of raw material. The success of the Supply Council had probably been because it was composed of a small number of capable men, thoroughly experienced, not only in their own sphere of.activity, but also in. grappling with the general commercial problems of supply. While the additional members were no doubt equally capable, he felt it would have been wiser to retain the original compactness taking into consultation as co-opted members any others, who from time to time the Minister’ or the Council itself, felt should be in attendance. A second criticism related to the placing of food production under the supervision and direction of the Commissioner of Supply rather than under the direction of production. That seemed to ignore the fact that food supplies were becoming more and more dependent on concentration extraction, dehydrafactory processing through canning, tion, or other manufacturing. bo many important problems incidental to that production were so closely allied to the functions of the Factory Controller, Timber Controller, Electricity and Mining Controller, that he felt, a mistake had been made in this subdivision. However, the Minister could be assured he and the executive officers would have the fullest co-operation of the Federation and its members in meeting the difficult problems of supply and production, with which the whole Dominion was faced.