RE-EMPLOYMENT OF SOLDIERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 May 1943, Page 5

RE-EMPLOYMENT OF SOLDIERS

CHARGE DISMISSED.

DUNEDIN, May 21

A point of some interest was raised in the Magistrate’s Court this morning, when an information was laid under the Occupational Re-es-tablishment Emergency Regulations, 1940, against the National Tobbaco Company, Ltd.. Port Ahuriri, for failure to reinstate George Arthur Hamilton Wilson in employment. Mr. W. H. Cadwallader, who appeared for the Labour Department, said that Wilson had been in the Army for 12 months, after he had been advised by his commanding officer that, having regard to his age (54), he was at liberty to leave the Army if he so desired. He was also ‘advised to write to the defendant company and ask for reinstatement. This. he had done, but the company replied declining the request. Wilson was at the time still in military service, and the point which the department wished elucidated was whether the soldier was to await his release from the Army before applying for reinstatement and then perhaps to await the pleasure of the employer or the decision of the Court, meanwhile possibly suffering hardship. The Magistrate, dismissing the info/rmation," said that considering the wording of the regulation, there could, in his opinion, be no offence. In regard to the request that he should comment upon the matter, because of a possible amendment to the regulations, he said he hardly thought it was a matter in which the Court should make any comment, ‘it was a matter for consideration by the appropriate authorities.