A NATIONAL REGISTER

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4233, 19 January 1940, Page 5

A NATIONAL REGISTER

SUBSTITUTE LABOUR FOR RESERVE OCCUPATIONS; WOMEN’S SERVICES ADVOCATED The time has arrived for the establishment by the Government of a National Register in New Zealand, and also the enlistment of women for active wartime duties in the Dominion, as has been instituted through the women’s auxiliary services in England, in the opinion of the Mayor of Hamilton, Mr H. D. Caro, who advocated these principles at a meeting of the South Auckland zone executive committee of the Auckland Provincial Patriotic Council, in Hamilton, on Wednesday. Mr Caro said that until the Government could find people to fill the duties of young men at present in reserved occupations it would not be advisable to allow these young men to enlist. However, labour could be distributed under a National Register system. MEN SHOULD BE RELEASED. Mr W. Hetherington, Mayor of Morrinsville, said he considered that if a young man were willing to offer his services for the army he should not be prevented from doing so because his occupation was reserved. Surely another person could be secured to take his place. He considered the time had come for the creation of a National Register. Men not passed fit for active service could be drafted to take the positions at home of some fit young men. Mr W. C. Kennedy, chairman of the Piako County Council, said the Government should conscript men to industrial positions as well as for the army. Mr Caro said the matter of whether a volunteer should be released from a reserved occupation for active service was in the hands of the Placement Officer of the district, who examined each case on its merits.

“No one is indispensable,” said Mr J. R. Fow, of Hamilton. “In the last war apparently essential men were taken in the influenza epidemic, yet industry went on without them.”