MANPOWER APPEAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25023, 13 October 1944, Page 4

MANPOWER APPEAL

DIJNEDIN CASE FAILS EVIDENCE IN' AUCKLAND (0.C.) DUNEDIN, Thursday Evidence was heard by the Auckland Manpower (Industrial) Committee last week in the case in which Francis John Fay, manager of the Criterion Hotel. Dunedin. had appealed, against the manpower officer's action in granting Brenda Joyce McLachlan permission to leave her employment. Miss McLachlan had gone to Auckland before the appeal could be heard and had reported to the manpower officer for essential work. At the hearing in Auckland, Mr Goldstine, who appeared for Miss McLachlan, said that she was a daughter of the late proprietor of the hotel and had inherited soma of the estate. A strained relationship had developed between her brother-in-law, Fay, who now managed the hotel, and herself. She was employed in the office of the hotel, but the manpower officer had permitted her to go to Auckland. The Dunedin Manpower Committee today gave its decision, disallowing the appeal. AGRICULTURAL OFFICER ENGAGED ON RESEARCH WORK An appeal on behalf of the Department of Agriculture against the mobilisation of one of. its experimental officers, Kenneth John Mitchell, aged 22, single, was opposed by the reservist at a sitting of the No. 1 Armed Forces Appeal Board yesterday. Mitchell, it was stated, was indispensable to the department, as he was in charge of the experimental programme being conducted at Papatoetoe in connection with the growing of vegetables for the armed forces. Reginald George Hamilton said the department had encountered difficulties in its vegetable projects owing to tile lack of technical information, and as a result there had been occasions when it had not been able to fulfil contracts with the United States authorities. In view of the position, an experimental area had been established under Mitchell's supervision at Papatoetoe to investigate such problems as the control of disease and weeds, manurial practice and the maintenance of all-the-year-round crops. The reservist, continued witness, was a university graduate with the necessary investigational outlook and had undertaken the project willingly and enthusiastically. His defection would seriously disrupt the experiments. "This boy is breaking his neck to do his job and the fact that he has not served is getting on his nerves," said Mr Dawson on behalf of the reservist. "If he has to tell future generations that he could not go to the war because he had to do research in connection with cabbages it is not going to be ] much of a story." The appeal was dismissed, subject to j the reservist not being called up before! March 1. 1945. j