MANPOWER SHORTAGE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 7 August 1945, Page 4

MANPOWER SHORTAGE

REHABILITATION RETARDED

New Plymouth, August 6.

“The shortage of manpower ts the limiting factor in rehabilitation today,” said the Minister of Rehabilitation, Mr Skinner, in an address here on Saturday night. "When you think of any aspect of rehabilitation, you will see that i am correct.”

Education, housing, land settlement and everything else were hampered by the shortage ’of manpower. Taking land settlement as an example, he said it was not the lack of land that was causing trouble, but the lack of qualified surveyors to subdivide the land and of experienced valuers to value it. The Government had 150,000 acres of improved land for settlement, and there were 225,000 acres of unimproved land the development of which was being hampered by tho very factor that was creating a problem for farmers in their drive for increased production —manpower and the lack of fertiliser.

"We cannot reduce the already inadequate allocation of fertiliser to farmers to put it on unimproved land when we know that the land will not produce for at least three seasons,’’ said Die Minister. "The only sensible thing to do in these days when food production is so vital is to see that the producers get their allocation, and the best we can do for unimproved land is to guarantee it an allocation equal to the average for the district.”