FEMALE LABOUR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 232, 1 October 1943, Page 3

FEMALE LABOUR

TRANSFER UNDESIRABLE SOUTH ISLAND PROTEST (P.A.) Christchurch, Sept. 30 The view that it was undesirable, for social reasons, to have a greater transfer of female labour from country districts to larger towns than is absolutely essential is expressed by the president of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association, Mr. A. M. Hollander, in a letter to the Minister of Industries and Commerce, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, protesting against, the direction of girls from the West Coast to essential undertakings in the North Island. Mr. Hollander’s protest was endorsed by the council of the association this evening. “Apart from the grave disquiet that is felt here regarding the social implications involved in the wholesale transference of labour from couniry districts to large centres of population, there is also a feeling that this business of concentrating in the North Island is to the detriment of the South Island, socially, politically and economically, and that postwar problems are being aggravate! by the continuance of this policy,” states Mr. Hollander. A request to the Government to safeguard New Zealand’s industrial war effort and its industrial fu'ure by urgently revising its military commitments, taking into consideration the material requirements of the United Nations to be produced in the Dominion and the country’s essential civilian requirements, was made in a resolution adopted by the council of The association this evening after discussion of manpower problems. The resolution stated that the Government should take this action as the position of industrial manpower was deteriorating.