THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Wednesday, February 4, 1942. MAN-POWER FOR THE FARMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24832, 4 February 1942, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Wednesday, February 4, 1942. MAN-POWER FOR THE FARMS

The plight of the farming community, which is notoriously short of labour owing to the mobilisation of man-power for the defence shortage accentuated by an over-expanded Public Works programme in ; - the. years prior to the war—necessarily reaches its peak when seasonal labour is rer quired. Sheepfarmers this year have been carrying out their shearing operations with extreme difficulty, and it £ says much for the resolution and the spirit of co-operation among,; the,, land-owners themselves that the wool has been brought in as it has been. A problem even more pressing, since the amount of labour required is greater, now .presents itself with the approach of harvesting. , The position is, simply, that men are not offering for this work. Yet it is work of national importance, :'as the Minister, of Agriculture, Mr Barclay, rather sweephigly acknowledged when he told ;a-South. Canterbury meeting of farmer! and farm workers that "it was' regarded as just as important to get the harvest in as to keep the war machine going." Unfortunately, however, the Government has not endorsed this. opinion to the extent of declaring farm production an essential.:industry, as it should be classed. Mr Barclay gave this meeting a definite undertaking that the harvest would be secured. The Government is prepared, in Cooperation with the military authorities, to release men from the military training camps for the purpose, and; ■ jth£; Minister outlined -What he was-^pileasedt to describe as a "simplified procedure" to obtain their services! This, as reported in our contemporary the Press, is the procedure: "A farmer must apply to the Placement Officer for labour, and, if none could be obtained in any f other J way, the Placement Officer would put the farmer's case before the Man-power Committee or the Primary Production Council. A, recommendation ; would then be made to the Army for the release of men for the work. If no particular men were asked for, there would be a call for volunteers. The men would; be released if a crop V Suchi a system as this may work. If crops could be allowed to wait upon the slow /prjpcesses of. official .action, and if. military /trainees ; ;in .sufficient . number elected to leave oAnny- ■ temporarily ,4o go harvesting; it would work. But the question of arranging to have the cjrops garnered and threshed .is now one of urgency, particularly as the lajte has; delayed_ ; : harvesting and new crops must be sown. It is .to ; be, apprehended that an even simpler system than that devised by the Minister ;of Agriculture would better meet the case.; While it must De that the necessity faces this country bfhtobiirsmg and; training the fullest possible number Of men for armed service, it might Be./not impossible to release them in adequate strength for a short period to enable harvesting operations to be completed. Or, as an alternative, they could be made available under Army orders, as has been; 'done in Great to assist, in the work. It remains, however, a question Whether, the Govhas, before it proceeds to nominate; soldiers, all other sources 6t labour supply. The allegation of the president of the South. Canterbury Millowners' Union that men in the linen flax industry—an, essential industry by Government definition—are working a 40-hour week, while threshing mills are unable to obtain operatives, suggests that there may stilJWbe numbers of suitable workers, outside the military camps, engaged under what have been described as "luxury conditions "of employment. Until the services of all the effective workers in the various branches of industry are engaged to the maximum of their capacity, the man-power of this country is not being exploited as the emergency requires. The Government's reluctance to face up, to the - situation' may probably be "attributed to political timidity induced'byl union dictatorship!;

: TRAMWAY SERVICES A report of the proceedings at a meeting of the Ratepayers' Association for the district shows that the residents of Mornington are dissatisfied with the tramway service that is provided for them. The Transport Committee of the City Council has undertaken to investigate the circumstances in which ah incident, described as a mishap, recently occurred on the Maryhill line, and it may be supposed that it will have no objection to acceding to the Association's request for a full repoi't on the result of the investigation. But there have been complaints, also, from residents cerning the general running of the Mornington line. The reason of these complaints has riot been stated, but it might be surmised that they relate to the overcrowding of the car and trailer . at certain hours of the day were it not that the executive of the Association has expressed the Opinion that "most of the troubles were brought about by lack of experience and supervision." This suggestion would seem to imply that the tramway staff was regarded as in some measure blameworthy, but the staff can hardly be held responsible for. the unquestionable fact that at various hours of the day and night the accommodation that is available for passengers is inadequate. The Mornington tramway service might

almost be said in fact to be disputing the reputation held through many years by the Roslyn service of presenting the most glaring example of overcrowding in the Dominion. But since the Roslyn cars have no trailers attached to them they seem normally to have no difficulty In negotiating the steepest gradient. Therein they have the advantage over the Mornington cars which.are apt to falter under conditions of severe loading with the result that buses have to be; temporarily requisitioned and the schedule becomes dislocated. The "general running" of the service certainly seems to call for the attention of the department.