COMMONWEALTH HOME FRONT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4559, 13 April 1942, Page 5

COMMONWEALTH HOME FRONT

HOW AUSTRALIA IS ORGANISING FOR WAR

TO MEET THREAT OF JAPANESE INVASION

Controls of many kinds to deal with property, trading, labour, and various other aspects of the life of the community have been by the Australian Go- ' vernment in the last two months in preparing the Commonwealth to meet the threat of a direct Japanese attack. News items showing how the life of Austraz lians is being re-organised on a war basis are here summarised from the columns of the Sydney “Morning Herald” for February and March. After the announcement of Government control of interest rates and share dealing on February 11, the most notable financial control imposed dealt with cash order and hire purchase business. Regulations effective from March 27 provided for the licensing by May 11 of all cash order companies, which must make returns of their business to the Treasury. Among the conditions provided in the regulations are the limitation of the premium to 9d in the £l, the amount to be repaid in 20 weeks; the limitation to £lO of the amount owing by one person at any time to all cash order traders; and the freeing from liability of the husband of any woman taking an order unless his prior consent in writing is obtained. In ordinary hire purchase business minimum deposits (as percentage of purchase price) and , maximum periods of repayment are ( established. At Government instigation conferences were held on rationalising the banking business in country towns and some suburbs, involving the closing of many branches. Power was taken to enter into possession of any building and the property in it, and to requisition motor vehicles. LIQUOR RESTRICTIONS “Low night clubs and sly grog shops” in Sydney and Melbourne were given considerable attention in an agitation about excessive drinking and abuse of liquor licensing conditions which began when public attention was called to the state of affairs by statements by Federal Ministers in Melbourne at the end of February. Special regulations were issued by the Victorian and New South Wales Governments on March 11. The New South Wales regulations prevent the delivery of liquor by hotelkeepers and licensed grocers to private houses and other unlicensed premises, or the sale to any private person in any one day of more than two gallons of bulk liquor or 21 gallons of bottled liquor. The Victorian regulations prohibit the sale and consumption of liquor at dance halls, etc., and prohibit the sale of bottle beer at hotels after 5.30 pan. on weekdays and after 2.30 p.m. on Saturday's. The Commonwealth Government has limited the hours of selling liquor retail to seven daily. A reduction by one-third in the production and sale of beer and in the sale of spirits by wholesalers to retailers was ordered by the Federal Government from March 17. The advertising of spirits was prohibited. From March 26 trading hours of licensed premises, formerly from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., were reduced to 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Several restrictions, apart from those concerning beer, affect the general public as retail consumers. TEA AND TOBACCO RATIONED Rationing plans for tea and tobacco were announced on March 2. Tea is rationed to loz. a week for each person over the age of nine years. Supplies of tobacco to retailers were reduced by 20 per cent, because of the uncertainty about future imports. The possibility of clothing restrictions was hinted at by the holding of conferences of manufacturers to devise a scheme for standardised clothes. The whole of the tomato crop in Victoria and in the New South Wales Murrumbidgee irrigation area was taken over by the Government to be canned for the armed forces. A ban has been placed on the manufacture of many kinds of cosmetics. The manufacture of domestic washing machines and vacuum cleaners is prohibited, and refrigerators are made only for the armed forces and hospitals. LABOUR TROUBLES Labour troubles continued in March, although not on the same scale as in January. After further stoppages at mines, notably at Glen Davis and Richmond, the War Cabinet announced on March 13 that it would enforce the National Security regulations in all cases of persons refusing to work at jobs at award rates and conditions. This statement was taken to imply a complete ban on industrial stoppages for the duration of the war. The regulations provide that in the event of a stoppage the works can be “declared,” making it possible for the strikers to be called up compulsorily under the Defence Act, placed in the labour corps at civil award rates, and then used on the jobs from which they struck- After this the Glen Davis sfcii ‘ went back to work. before this the formation of a civilian labour corps from some of the men registered for military training was announced. Service in the labour corps is compulsory for the men selected. Regulations were also issued providing that any seaman refusing to accept a berth when requested or instructed to do so by the Maritime Industry Commission should in future be debarred from employment in the maritime industry. Another regulation provided that all employers except those engaged in munitions or “protected” industries, must obtain the consent of the manpower authorities before engaging any male employee. A national registration scheme was introduced on March 16. All British subjects over the age of 16 had to register, and were to be issued with civilian identity cards for their own protection and to assist the authorities for rationing and other purposes. Five million registration forms were

prepared, but towards the end of the month it was announced that 2,000,000 people had still not registered. WINDOWS MUST BE PROTECTED Emergency precautions activities in the main followed the same lines as in New Zealand, although in some particulars more drastic steps have been taken. Such, for example, are the regulations dealing with protection against splinters of glass from domestic and display windows within 9ft of the street line. Domestic windows have to be protected either with a complete covering or with strips of cotton linen on muslin stuck to the glass, or with half-inch wire netting. Plate glass display windows on all shops in coastal towns have to be protected more thoroughly. They may be treated like domestic windows in and out, and either completely covered oh the outside with fine, wire netting, or boarded up, leaving apertures not more than 3ft by 4ft in size, capable of being covered by shutters in a raid. The protection must withstand pressure or suction caused by bomb blast. So few firms took notice of these regulations that on March 24 the Minister in Charge of Emergency Services announced that after April 7 he would order the removal of all unprotected plate glass. THE ALL-IN EFFORT As in New Zealand, powers have been taken by which all male civilians between the ages of 18 and 60 can be compelled to do Air Raid Precautions or other Home Security work (unpaid) for a maximum of 48 hours a month. Considerable difficulty was experienced in getting people to comply with the lighting restrictions—even Government buildings were frequent offenders—and on March 14 the police began to prosecute for breaches. Motorists were in trouble because sufficient headlight masks were not available. On March 26 it was announced that 1,000,000 gas masks for civilians in New South Wales would be. distributed, through the National Emergency Services. Evacuation was widely discussed, but early , in February the War Council decided that large-scale evacuation of civilians should be strongly discouraged. Nevertheless a steady stream of evacuees was flowing from Sydney to the country, 3328 children being evacuated from Sydney in January. Most of these children were accompanied by adults. At some schools shelter trenches were provided by the authorities. At others, trenches were dug by “working, bees” of. residents. First aid instruction was added to the syllabus for children of. the fifth and sixth standards •of State primary schools. ~ To deal with the evacuation of live-, stock in emergency, official Federal and State committees were set up. It w;s announced oil February 24 that a scheme would be prepared, (1) for the orderly evacuation of stock prior to an invasion to reduce the number of stock on the coast and to distribute to inland areas, and (2) for a rush evacuation of stock and associated industries from any area in special emergency. IMMOBILISING ALL BOATS “What to do if Invaders Come” was the title of an official booklet distributed by the Department of Home Security on March 2. To prevent an invader using captured boats for infiltration along the coast, regulations gazetted on March 17 gave the naval authorities power to order the immobilisation of all types of water craft —-rowing boats as well as powered craft—which could be used by an invader, even if the only course open should be their total destruction. The collection of boats and their concentration at selected points in harbours and estuaries began the next day. Another step taken was the removal of railway locality signs capable of being read from low-flying aircraft. Large scale production of the Owen sub-machine gun had not begun in February. An official announcement stated that some Owen guns had been delivered to the army, and others were being tested. Instructions had been given that mass production of the gun should be entered on at the earliest possible date. The makers were hindered by the difficulty of obtaining machine tools.