Labour on Farms

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20526, 9 April 1941, Page 6

Labour on Farms

The problem of maintaining adequate labour on farms while providing man-power for the military forces was discussed by the Auckland District Council of Primary Production. Mr. J. M. Smith said that a committee representing the Waikato district council was effectively co-operating with the Armed Forces Appeal Board for that district. A resolution was adopted urging that the National Council of Primary Production approach the Minister of Man-power suggesting that in the cases of farmers and farm labourers lodging appeals, the services of a committee representing the various Primary Production Councils be utilised in an advisory capacity by the Appeal Boards.

Trained V.A.D.s Needed With the shortness of food supplies of nations owing to war conditions, the substitution of artificial products, the conditions of housing, and the worries and stress of life under present conditions in the older countries, the peoples of the world should be prepared in ease an epidemic broke out, as was the case after the last war, said Miss E. P. Tenncnt, honorary touring director of voluntary aids for the New Zealand Red Cross Society, in an address last evening. The speaker, who was then in service at the Wellington Hospital, gave vivid details of the influenza epidemic of 1918, and mentioned that the total deaths in the Dominion in the four months when the disease was at its worst were greater than the total New Zealand dead in four years of war. The epidemic, however, had taught one valuable lesson, and that was Ihc importance of voluntary aids, and that had been stressed also in the case of the Napier earthquakes. In cases of disaster, men and women, youths and girls, always rushed forward to give assistance generously, but such assistance was so more valuable if the helper was a trained man or woman. In addition to work in the sick room, a fully qualified Voluntary Aid Detachment girl could fill'a prominent place or supervise work in a camp hospital, kitchen or storeroom. Then again such experience was always valuable in one’s own home. The speaker urged those present to continue with their studies until they were fully qualified V.A.D.s,