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military advisers agreed that the 16th Reinforcements could largely be returned to industry and that only a small proportion, consisting of a limited number of young men, would require to be retained meantime in each military district. Simultaneously with the disbandment of the 16th Reinforcements a large-scale demobilization of the Forces was decided upon. It was later decided that only one brigade of some 4,000* men and one Air Force Fighter Squadron of some 240 men would be required for participation in the occupation of Japan. In September the Hon. the Minister of National Service announced that, pending revocation of the relative Proclamations, it would not be necessary for further enrolments in the General Reserve to be effected. On Ist December the revocation of the various Proclamations calling for enrolment in the several classes of the General Reserve took effect. 21. In January, 1946, it was decided that the personnel of the occupation force for Japan should serve for a limited period of six months onlyand should be replaced by a volunteer Force to be raised in New Zealand, and known as J Force. As this Forcewas to be a volunteer one and strictly limited in size it was not considered that thereshould be any undue interference with the right of civilians to volunteer. Nevertheless,, it was considered undesirable that men engaged in such key industries as coal-mining,, timber, and sawmilling, which were seriously short of labour, should be mobilized. Army agreed not to mobilize men from these industries and also not to mobilize any exceptionally key men in other vital industries. To give effect to this policy District Man-power Officers screened a very limited number of men. 22. The numerical reductions in personnel envisaged by Navy were so great that the number of men required for short service in the Navy was too small to seriously affect industry. Moreover, the types of men volunteering for six-year or twelve-year terms with the Navy were such that they had obviously chosen naval service for a career. It therefore appeared that interference with further volunteer enlistmentsin the Navy would not to be justified, and consequently no departmental action was taken to screen further volunteers for naval service. The Royal New Zealand Air Force obtained approval from Government for the raising of an Interim Air Forceof 2,500 men. After discussion by Cabinet, the National Service Department wasauthorized to screen enlistments in the Interim Air Force on the same basis as enlistments for the J Force. No difficulties have been encountered during the screening, and volunteers are being obtained without serious embarrassment to industry. (ii) Industrial Man-power 23. Decisions regarding industrial man-power policy also followed the trend of events in the war theatres. In June, 1945, when the defeat of Germany had brought large-scale demobilization into close prospect, the decision was taken that National Service should take over from the Rehabilitation Department the placement of all ex-servicemen at the stage at which they were finished with remedial treatment or trade training (if any) and were seeking ordinary civilian vacancies. The work was undertaken in close continuing liaison with the Rehabilitation Department and its variousCommittees. 24. The defeat of Germany also led to decisions regarding man-power controls.. In May, 1945, it was decided to commence a progressive review of all declarations of essentiality applying wartime man-power controls to various industries and individual undertakings. The first revocations were made on 30th June, 1945, by which time a schedule of progressive revocations had been provisionally adopted (see Part 111, Section 111 (ii)). 25. The decision to revoke declarations was accompanied by a decision to exempt certain limited classes of people from various man-power obligations. This exemption was announced on 30th June, 1945. Following the surrender of Japan, it was decided that the exempted classes should be very considerably widened, and this was announced on 18th August.

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