MINISTER OF SUPPLY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 303, 24 December 1942, Page 4

MINISTER OF SUPPLY

REORGANISATION APPEALS TO MANUFACTURERS (p A.) Wellington, Dec. 23. Commenting on the reorganisation of the Ministry of Sunnly, the secretary of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation says it is certainly gratifying to the manufacturers to read such a bold and clear statement of the importance of supply as a factor in this war as coming from a member of the War Cabinet and a political leader who holds such an important place in the Government, as the Hon. D. G. Sullivan does to-day. The manufacturers will also appreciate the definite nature of the Minister’s administrative set-up, apart altogether from the men selected or the subdivision of duties within the department. Overlapping and a degree of indecision which has existed in the past, partly because of departmental routine and partly through there being no clearly defined line of function between certain sections of the department, should disappear. A direct channel of approach from any particular departmental officer concerned through rhe appropriate controller and executive officer to the Minister himself is fairly clearly established in the new setup, whether it be on the question of production or supply or price or other form of control, he said. The Minister’s statement emphasised the importance of production within New Zealand itself, and the necessary corollary to that was recognition of the position of our industries as a major factor in the war effort. The problems of production naturally involved the attendant problems of manpower and supplies of raw material. The success of the Supply Council had probably been because it was comprised of a small number of canable men, thoroughly experienced not only in their own sphere of activity but also in grappling with the genera] commercial problems of supply. While the additional members were no doubt equally capable, he felt it would have been wiser to retain its original compactness, taking into consultation as co-opted members any others who. from time to time, the Minister or the Council itself felt should be in attendance. The second criticism related to the placing of food production under the supervision and direction of the Commissioner of Supply rather than under the Director of Production. That seemed to ignore the fact that food supplies were becoming more and more dependent on factory processing through canning, concentration, extraction, dehydration or other manufacturing. So many important problems incidental to that production were so closely allied to the functions of the Factory Controller, Timber Controller. Electricity and .Mining Controller that he felt a mistake had been made in this subdivision. However, the Minister could be assured that he and the executive officers would have the fullest cooperation of the Federation and its members in meeting the difficult problems of supply and production with which the whole Dominion was faced.