DECISION WANTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25851, 23 May 1945, Page 4

DECISION WANTED

FARMING OR ARMY? WITHDRAWAL OF MEN (Special) AUCKLAND, May 22. “ The time has come for the Government to decide whether it wants more dairy production or more men for the armed forces,” says the New Zealand Dairy Board in a letter that has been sent to the Acting Prime Minister, Mr Nash. The board recalls that on two recent occasions it has taken up with Mr Nash the question of the call-up of men from dairy farms and dairy factories and has expressed its opinion that, if the present policy is continued, it will not only be impossible to increase dairy production next year, but that there wjll be a reduction.

Members of the board had just returned after holding 10 ward conferences throughout the North Island, it is stated. The conferences were attended by the directors of the dairy companies in the various districts, and almost without exception there were full attendances. What was now being put forward represented, therefore, the considered views of the whole of the dairy company directors of the North Island. Grave View Taken “They take a very grave view of dairy production possibilities for next season if men are withdrawn to the armed forces,” the letter continues. “They feel that your statement that the over-all position next year—as far as labour for dairy farms and dairy factories is concerned—will be no worse than existed this year, fails entirely to take into account the actual conditions that exist on a great many dairy farms. “ The plain facts are that during the war years a great many dairy farms have been kept operating by men who have let their sons go overseas and who, with the help of their wives, have battled on. During this present season numerous instances have occurred where these older men, through illhealth, have simply had to give up, and each year the position in this respect gets a little more serious.” As a result of the statements last year by the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, when announcing the plan for increased production over the next three seasons, the board felt justified in assuming that labour would be available for dairy farms for the whole of the period. Many of the older men in the industry who were feeling the strain and who might have given up dairying at the end of last season decided to continue because of these definite undertakings by the Government that men would be withdrawn from the forces for the purpose of assuring increased dairy production. Now they were finding these men were again being withdrawn from the farms, and many of the older farmers would give up farming at the end of the present season. “ Many farmers found it difficult to understand the Government’s policy, the letter says. “On the one hand, there are these repeated references to the grave need for production, and on the other there is the present call-up which, in the opinion of practical men who are in a position to know, will definitely result in decreased production.” Labour Needed Now Men were needed on the farms now’, and they were needed during the winter also to feed the stock that would be responsible for next season’s production. Mr Nash’s idea that the men coming back from the Middle East would solve the farm labour problem, and it was just a case of the farmers waiting a few months for them, was good theory, but it unfortunately would not work.

Resolutions on the subject were carried at every one of the ward conferences and the board was asked to draw Mr Nash’s attention immediately to one passed at the Stratford conference which was representative of Taranaki opinion. This urged that the Government relieve the present serious drain on farm labour by a rigorous comb-out of the armed forces within New Zealand and that it obtain from the British Government a pronouncement on its priority needs as to food production and armed forces from the Dominion. “We ask that this be done at the earliest possible moment,” the letter states. “We assure you of the desire of the dairy" producers to do everything possible to maintain and increase their production, and similarly we assert positively that this desire will not be possible of carrying into effect unless the present policy of withdrawing men into the armed forces is revoked and ample labour is made available for farms and factories next season. It is urgently necessary that a statement on this question be made immediately by the Government.”