Planning

The period of restoration of capital goods can be utilised in retraining and in educating men and women for permanent peace-time positions and in restoring public utilities and public works that have been neglected for war-time essential industries and be cause of man-power shortages. Comprehensive housing schemes should be inaugurated and farm maintenance restored. To ensure the restoration of capital before consumer goods it will be essential to continue and probably extend war-time controls over industry, rationing and importation. Strict government control, increased cooperation between worker and employer, and long-term planning will be necessary.

As a speaker from the floor pointed out, the Government should acquaint the people of New Zealand with a full knowledge of the difficulties ahead and condition them to expect the continuation of rationing and controls. Well-organised Government [unclear: propa]ganda must be initiated before the peace is won and it is too late to convince the public.

Mr. Reid went on to discuss the necessity of placing disabled men in suitable work immediately—a lesson that had been learnt from the work done by returned men themselves after the last war. The treatment of psyconeurosis presented another comprehensive problem which another speaker from the floor emphasised, can only be successfully dealt with by proper expert care immediately available.

The international position would complicate internal rehabilitation. Specialised production to feed occupied countries, and the impossibility of acquiring necessary machinery from abroad might hinder the restoration of peace-time economy. From the international point of view Lease-lend offers a practical solution to the problem of providing each country with its essential requirements at the peace, the implications of which it is difficult to foretell.