KEY OCCUPATIONS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20602, 1 November 1941, Page 4

KEY OCCUPATIONS

SINGLE MEN RESERVED COMMITTEE’S POLICY APPEALS PRO, FORMA With the prospect of a call-up of the first class of married men for overseas service within a few months, the continuance of reservations for single men in key industries is becoming an acute question for man-power committees in various parts of the Dominion. The Gisborne district committee is engaged in a review of all such' reservations, and is adopting the policy that as far as possible single men should be released before the married men are called upon. At this week’s meeting, the committee dealt with a number of cases in which men had previously been reserved, and in order to have the circumstances fully recorded it was arranged that the employers of the respective reservists or volunteers should attend the sitting and give evidence. One case of particular interest was that of a young single man who volunteered for overseas service during the early months of the war, and who was reserved in view of his employment on his father’s station. His case came up for review this week, and it was mentioned that he was one of the few volunteers who' had not yet been released for service. Employer Makes No Appeal In this case, as in some others which the board had to review, the employer of the volunteer was asked to give evidence as to the circumstances in which the volunteer was working. The employer, Mr. W. T. Veitch, was treated as an appellant, for the purposes of the review, but he stated in the course of his evidence that he was not appealing, any more than he had previously.

The position was that the volunteer was reserved by the man-power committee without any question of an appeal being made, and his reservation was extended from time to time as there appeared to have been no change in the circumstances of the case. His father described him as a good marksman, and a man who would make a good soldier, and he left it to the committee to determine whether the volunteer’s services would be more valuable on tie station, where he was equally sound from the point of view of farming practice, or in the army. The committee decided to adjourn the matter sine die once again.