MANPOWER PROBLEM

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 22690, 18 August 1945, Page 8

MANPOWER PROBLEM

REHABILITATION DIFFICULTIES STATEMENT BY MINISTER “Shortage of manpower is the limiting factor in rehabilitation today,” said the Minister of Rehabilitation, the Hon. C. F. Skinner, during an address at New Plymouth. “When you think of any particular aspect of rehabilitation you will see that I am correct,” he added. Education, housing, land settlement and everything else were hampered by the shortage of manpower, said Mr Skinner. Taking land settlement as an example, he said it was not the lack of land that was causing the trouble, but the lack of qualified surveyors to subdivide the land and of experienced valuers to value it. Efforts were being made to increase the staff of valuers, but it would have to be expanded a good deal yet before he would feel happy about the land position. There was not a surveyor in the country who was not working full time. A soldier could not receive a title to land until it had been surveyed by a registered surveyor, and he could not obtain a loan without a title. In some cases in which men had been allotted land by ballot for which they had not yet obtained a title they were being employed on the land on wages. He was sure that no one knew how far in arrears were the day-to-day surveys. Land for Settlement The Government had 150,000 acres of improved land for settlement, and there were 225,000 acres of unimproved land, the development of which was being hampered by the very factor that was creating a problem for farmers in their drives for increased production—manpower and lack of fertiliser. “We cannot reduce the already inadequate allocation of fertiliser to the farmers to put it on unimproved land when we know that land will not produce for at least three seasons,” declared Mr Skinner. “The only sensible thing to do in these days when food production is so vital is to see that the producers get their allocation, and the best we can do for the unimproved land is to guarantee it an allocation equal to the average for the district. “The manpower position is altering from day to day,” he continued. “Something like 30,000 men are to return to New Zealand by the end of the year, and although this will create headaches for us, it will find a partial solution to our problems.”