CONTROL OF LABOUR

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 224, 21 August 1945, Page 5

CONTROL OF LABOUR

AUSTRALIAN RELAXATION. SUBTLE CHANGE EEARED. (N.Z. Press Association. —Cop\-riglit.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Rec. 10.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, Aug. 20. The feeling of satisfaction and relief at the War Cabinet's decision to revoke manpower controls has been tempered by the fear that a more subtle means of controlling labour is being adopted. The Canberra correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald says most observers there believe that Cabinet's decision "to revoke entirely the power of direction of labour" must remain technical and illusory until unimpeded rights to engage labour are restored to industry and commerce. The decision to restore those rights only to a minority group of selected industries is a concealed form of direction of labour which cannot have freedom while bureaucracy restricts its fields of choice of occupation. The only persons free to take employment of their ow.n choosing as a result of the War Cabinet's decision are ex-service personnel, persons uudor 18 years and those who are qualified and eager to work in industries of the minority group specified. These facts became clear from inquiries at the week-end about the real meaning of the manpower decisions announced after the War Cabinet meeting. The Government has issued a list of industries in which employers from now on will be permitted to advertise for and engage labour without obtaining a permit from the National Service Office. The Svdney Morning Herald in an editorial says that the public will want to know a good deal more about Cabinet's swiftly produced manpower proposals before' concluding that this most obnoxious of war controls is really on the way out. What the Government described as the lifting of all manpower controls not considered essential to the speedy re-establishment of servicemen and war workers 'looks more like retention of control in another guise.