NOT FAST ENOUGH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 55, 10 March 1944, Page 5

NOT FAST ENOUGH

WORK OF REHABILITATION

RETURNED SOLDIERS VIEWS It is interesting to learn authoritatively the reaction of the average returned man to the vaunted Rehabilitation Scheme about which thjs__cmiiitrv___has will be read with interest by our readters. "At the last, general election," said Gapt. Brabant, "both political sides promised all sorts of things to the. men who would be returning to this country. Nothing was going to beat New Zealand's rehabilitation scheme. It is the opinion however of some of the men I have been talking to, that the scheme is not going fast enough. Since it came into operation 77 men have been assisted to get their own homes at a cost of £79,000. Three hundred had been helped to get their own furniture at ail average per mail of £101. Out of the 17,000 returned men now in the country this did not seem to he. any great effort and the general opinion was tlflit those in authority had not, been generous enough. That was where the R.S.A. could help.

Another subject he touched; upon was the African Star, and the inverted 'V' the Arab emblem which meant the figure 8. This distinctive decoration could only be worn now (by regulation) by those avlio had fought from El Alamein onwards. There were plenty of men in the Eighth Army who had been through j;us,t as tough lighting prior to El Alamein and he contended that they to should be. permitted this privilege. Another thing which the R.S.A. .could take up.