LAST RESERVE CALLED UP

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24464, 23 December 1942, Page 2

LAST RESERVE CALLED UP

New Zealand to-day calls up the last remaining class liable for military service. She is plumbing her last reserve of military manpower. Hereafter she can look only to small accretions from the rising generation —those reaching the age of 18. To have reached the bottom of the reservoir at this indeterminate stage of the war is a serious matter. Good authorities have stated that no other British or Allied country has drawn so heavily on manpower resources for military purposes. With the best will 'in the world, New Zealanders are being compelled to ask whether the Government's policy is not producing an unbalanced condition; whether the production froht is not being stripped to man the fighting front. Such a trend would, of course, damage the whole war effort. Military units are useless without adequate support and sustenance from their supply base. This central and fundamental problem of the allocation of manpower is the subject of a statement published to-day. It must carry weight with the Government, consisting, as it does, of the agreed opinions and recommendations of bodies representing Auckland . workers, business men, employers and manufacturers, and carrying the unanimous endorsement of the' Farmers' Union. Such unanimity of opinion is as rare as it should be influential. This conference

considers the manpower situation to be so grave that immediate action should be taken to formulate and apply a policy commensurate with the probable duration of the war and the resources of the Dominion. Not content with stating the problem, the conference makes a series of positive and practical recommendations for solving it. These should aid the Government in the resurvey it y has belatedly announced. Nor should the military authorities be allowed to overlook the suggestions that theyi can and should effect important economies in the use of man and woman power. By a coincidence, the statement will be powerfully reinforced in the public mind by the calling up to-day from an over-strained home front of 31,997 men for military service even though their eventual obligations are now made indefinite.