NATIONAL REGISTER FOR AUSTRALIA.

Otaki Mail, 31 March 1939, Page 4

NATIONAL REGISTER FOR AUSTRALIA.

FEDERAL CABINET REVERSES ITS DECISION. BIG AIRCRAFT PROGRAMME. CANBERRA, March 29. The Federal Cabinet to-day decided upon a compulsory register of the Commonwealth man-power and thus reversed its Hobart decision for a voluntary register. The Prime Minister’s (Mr. J. A. Lyons) stated object was to ensure the classification of skilled persons “in relation to the demands of the Navy, Army, Air Force and essential industries in the event of an emergency.” Registration, lie added, in no way implied obligation to serve in armed forces or any particular form of industry. The Prime Minister announced that Cabinet had decided to authorise the erection immediately of two huge units for the production of complete military aircraft —one at Sydney and another in Melbourne —controlled by a central Commonwealth management committee.

The Prime Minister, amplifying his statement, said an agreement had been reached between the Commonwealth and the British Government for a joint order involving millions of pounds for the production in Australia of a number of the latest type of military and general reconnaissance aircraft. “the Beaufort,” the engines for which were being supplied by Britain for the time being, but emergency arrangements for Aus-tralian-made engines will in due course be made and will thus be incorporated in the general production scheme.

Railway workshops in all Eastern States of Australia will be engaged in construction of the standardised frames, and the final assembly of the aircraft will be carried out in the central workshops at Sydney and Melbourne.

The delivery of the first batch of air-frames is scheduled for 1940. The maximum bulk of pro(Fiction will be about the middle of .1941.