Early Start Next Year

As yet it is rather early for me to be able to indicate the extent to which students will have to be called upon during the approaching summer, but the indications are that it will be possible to avoid making any request for an extension of the University vacation. I would say quite definitely, however, that there will be a need for assistance from students in various avenues of work of national importance and that, apart from an extension of holidays for the purpose, much the same measures can be expected to apply this summer as applied last summer.

I would make a particular request to students first of all to give the Manpower Officers the maximum of co-operation and to bear in mind the difficulties which those officers themselves are confronted with; and secondly, if they have any cause for complaint, to make It known fully and specifically to the Manpower Officer without delay. You may rest assured that Manpower officers will do their utmost to avoid valid causes of complaint or, where such unavoidably arise, to remove them quickly.

The tpes of work to which students will be directed are likely to be much the same as last summer, preference being given to open-air work to the greatest extent that the urgency of national needs will permit. Students can also expect a reasonable break between finishing their examinations and commencing holiday work and a further short break between finishing that work and resuming classes. Students are called up for this vacation work however only because of the urgency of the national need. It is a call to National Service ad a duty in the same sense as any other national service. I stress this point because, while we shall do as much as possible to meet the circumstances of students and to safeguard their reasonable welfare. I would not like any student to be under the false impression that the obligation required of him is one that can be molifled to his or her convenience without regard to the national interest, or that his or her duty is in any sense a lesser duty than similar ones necessarily imposed on other citizens. But over all, and particularly in the light of your fine response last summer, I do not anticipate that any such attitude will be found, and I certainly feel assured that whatever call it may be necessary to make for students' help will be answered fully and willingly.