Mobilisation of Man‐Power
| Published date | 01 March 1946 |
| Author | Godfrey Ince |
| Date | 01 March 1946 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1946.tb03062.x |
PUBLIC
SERVICES
DINNER
TO
THE PRESIDENT
develop
an
internationally
minded
stafE
or will
it
be necessary
to
rely
on
a
balance of nationalities
in
a combined
stat€?
People who
can
put their national
prejudices behind them
are
very rare.
I
have tried
to
show
within
the
limits
of
an after-dinner
speech
that there
is an assured place for an Institute of
this
kind;
I
hope that the heads
of
the
Civil
Service departments
and
of
the local authorities will take an interest in
its
work
and encourage their
stafE
to take
part
in its activities.
Mobilisat ion
of
Man-Power
By
SIR
GODFREY
INCE,
K.C.B.,
K.B.E.
THE
subject of my
address
this
evening is the mobilisation of man-power.
I
selected that subject because the mobilisation of
the
man- and woman-power
of the nation has
been
one of the great tasks which the
Ministry
of Labour and
National Service has had to undertake during the war and because it has certain
special features
of
administrative and executive action
that
I
thought would be
of interest to
you.
The subject, however, is such a
vast
one that
I
am afraid
I
shall
be able to deal only
with
the
main
features
of
it,
and
I
shall have to leave
out many details which,
I
am
sure,
would have been of interest to you.
The responsibility of the Ministry of Labour and National Service in
this
matter involved the calling-up of men and women for the Forces and the Women’s
Auxiliary
Services
on
the one hand and the supply of man-power for civil defence
and for munitions and other vital war indusmes and services
on
the other. The
fundamental aim of the Government’s man-power
policy
was to mobilise our
resources at such
a
speed and in such a
way
that the naval,
military
and air
forces of the country and the war production
of
the country reached their highest
pints at the
time
when maximum impact against the enemy was needed.
In
order to achieve
this,
we had
to
carry out a series
of
surveys of the
man-power resources of the country and the demands made
upon
them in order
that the Government should be in a position
to
come
to
a decision
as
to
the
extent to which and the means by which
those
demands could and should be
met.
In
making those
surveys,
we obtained information from the Service, Supply
and other Departments as to the numbers needed to meet their requirements.
We obtained
information
as
to the numbers
in
employment by means
of
periodical
returns from employers,
and
also
from
the
statktics derived from the annual
exchange of unemployment insurance
books
in
July of each year. We then
made
a
forecast
of
the man-power that was likely to be available during the
ensuing period under review, and in that
way
we built up the man-power budget,
on
the basis of which allocations were made by the Cabinet to the forces, to civil
defence
and
to industry. In order to
carry
out ‘those allocations, a series of legis-
lative and administrative measures had to
be
put into operation, resulting in an
increasing measure of control as time went
on.
There
is
one preliminary observation
I
should like
40
make
in connection
with the various measures that had to be taken.
It
was essential
that
they
should be timed to take place at the right moment.
It
was vitally necessary
that, in
all
these steps which we took, they should be taken
at
the right moment.
May
I
just
give
you one example of that.
It
was quite clear that,
in
the
early stages of the war, the conscription of women would not be acceptable to
the country, and we had to
wait
until there were sufficient women voluntarily
3
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