TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. FRIDAY, 4th OCTOBER, 1940. THE ALL-IN POLICY.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 61, Issue 4341, 4 October 1940, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. FRIDAY, 4th OCTOBER, 1940. THE ALL-IN POLICY.

WAR’S inexorable demands can now be recognised as the Government makes positive the all-in policy which was forecast a few months ago. In manpower and in finance the claim is for all that the citizen can offer, and the territorial ballot, following close upon the heels of the announced compulsory war loan, gives a personal application of what had hitherto been more an expression of public intent. The .urge is one of necessity and the aim is a universal spread of sacrifice and effort. Nobody can begrudge the effort, or complain at the severity of the sacrifice provided that there can be a generous desire to spread both equitably and universally. Difficulties, it is true, abound and in the assessment of equality there needs must bp a generous view. Many people can perhaps be pardoned if they dwell unduly on the rule of average as regarded from surface impressions, but some fuller knowledge of the complexities and of the vast and contradictory circumstances which go to make up the aggregate of the social and economic structure of modern society is necessary before judgments can be i easonably given, and it does seem that there is an undue tendency to form unjustifiable conclusions by comparison. No Government has ever yet found it possible to equally apportion responsibility in any sphere of public activity and it seems unlikely that any Government ever will. The thing to strive for is a reasonable average of effort and contribution to the public cause, and this can best he attained if co-operation is offered end if constructive effort is forthcoming. Very certainly grumbling and fault-finding are poor substitutes for effort and, in the present circum- . tances are rather a modern version ci’ shat age-old story based upon the folly of Nero’s fiddling. It is poor consolation to recall past follies and shortcomings and though it may be ituo that pre-war warnings should have been heeded, the fact remains that tliey were not. The memory till lingers of four Colonels who were cashiered and disgraced because they advocated a course of duty which, bad it been followed at that time, may very probably have made unnecessary the present-day rush and emergency methods of restoring our territorial forces. Time, and cruel circumstance, have proved that they were right and that the Government rnd people were wrong in refusing advice which should have been accepted. But the knowledge of that folly or the realisation of the indiscretions of the past can at best be poor consolation. To-day it is realities that matter and must be faced. The ballot makes a claim which is baf--9 ’ ngly exacting and the Government is beset with an exasperating task. Either it must forego organisation in n. military sense or it must abandon claim for increased production and industry in an economic sense. It would be impossible to concentrate on intensive military training without impairing production by the ■withdrawal of so many men from the farms and the factories at the height of the season. Alternatively, if the men are to be withdrawn, and if pro-dne-tion is to be maintained, the other members of the farmers’ families must be drawn into the milking sheds, and that, obviously, is a labour condition which is a denial of everything the Government has professed. It is useless suggesting that young men taken from the farms and from skilled industi ies can be replaced by other men who may be transferred from the unskilled occupations, because training is still a vital quality in industry and production. The fact is that more and more women and children are being driven into the milking sheds, and the tendency is steadily in that direction. The indications suggest that circumstances will develop to a stage when the Government‘will be forced to modify its plans, and there might well be an immediate reconsideration. In so far as the men can be withdrawn for intensive military training the need is pressing and *he lee-way of the past must be overtaken as quickly as possible. But for *he others—those who must be retained to maintain industry and production, there could well be re-intro-duced local training schemes in the afterwork hours. The Government’s present dilemma arises very largely out of its own unpreparedness and the folly of its own slavish adherence

to the forty-hour week of the work-a-day scheme, as though that constituted the whole civilian responsibility, and has left the country unready and unprepared. But time and emergency go to provide that there is more than a work-a-day or industrialised scheme to make claim on the citizen and it is not too late to impress the responsibility and give it practical recognition.