R.S.A. STOCK DRIVE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 46, 9 February 1943, Page 4

R.S.A. STOCK DRIVE

CONGRATULATIONS to the Whakatane Branch of the Returned Services" Association, on the- splendidly con-, structive scheme it has sponsored to ensure the right stocking of soldiers farms during the period of rehabilitation. Here is something which contains the very essence of the new o^der —the-idea of universal service to assist those who are seeking to establish themselves. The scheme is commendable from every direction and as the association very ably points out, will completely overcome the diffit , culties which so hampered the soldiers' settlement schemes which were launched at the conclusion of last war. There need be no inflationary rise in the price of dairy stock, no palming off of job herds to men whose ignorance made them accept animals at their face value and on the word of unprincipled agents. All these points have been investigated by the senior organisation which will see that in this district at any rate the farms will be stocked by herds of proven production. There: wtll be no 'walking off' if the R,.SA. can help it this time. The young stock which •will now be set apart by the old soldiers of the' last war,, for the benefit of the younger soldiers of this, will be selected, listed and graded and when the time comes, will be released for the new settlement farms which will be} thrown open to the farmers of the future gleaned from the ranks of the veterans of Greece, Crete, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. More power to a voluntary civilian organisation which is able owing to the nature of its inception to inaugurate such a scheme of comradely assistance. The gesture is a remarkable one and furnishes but another illustration of the strength of unity and the brotherhood which is born of the battlefield.