REHABILITATION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 68, 27 April 1945, Page 5

REHABILITATION

WORK OF LOCAL COMMITTEE OUTLINE BY MEMBERS The question of rehabilitation was raised at the meeting of the Whakatane Chamber of Commerce at its l last meeting with the result that a most interesting survey was given of the operations of the local committee by Mr B. S. Barry and Mr W. Sullivan M.P. both of whom are members and have taken a sympathetic part in the vital undertaking of assisting our men from overseas back into civil life. i The chairman, Mr H. Warren, rpeintcd out that the difficulties after last war when we had only one division in the field were great enough. Today there were the equivalent of three divisions and the task would be tremendous. Mr C. F. Thomas who introduced the subject said that to date no less than 66 451 men had been demobilised and a surprising feature was that only 8713 had elected to go !-.ack to their pre-service whilst 13,890 had desired new spheres of occupation. A large section desired to start business of their own and others again wanted to go on the land. He suggested that the Chamber could actively assist the local committee by setting up a labour exchange or something akin to it T and by making its services available to the rehabilitation secretary.

Mr Barry said lie could assure members that what was being done by the committe was of a far-reach-ing and thorough nature. The work required infinite pains and entailed the longest meetings he attended. The committee sought to put all applicants at their ease, from the time they first contacted them. It was the committee's to be of assistance and to. find out what was actually in the best interests of the applicants. Messrs Wilson and Luxton were particularly helpful with those who desired to go on to the land. They took a jiersonal interest in each man and to date 13 men had been placed on farms whilst another four were in the process of being settled. The procedure was to grade the men into, roughly three categories: 'a' those who had had previous experience and who were obviously suited for the work; 'b' those who coiijd be trained by a course, at Massey College to make good farmers and 4 c' those who were obviously not fitted or suited for the work. Even when the men had their farms the committee kept constant touch with them and advised them on . all points.

With regard to the men who desired to acquire businesses of their own two had been placed so far locally and two others were being assisted. There was no difficulty for those who desired to go back into employment. Few of these ever readied the committee, for they were snapped up by waiting employers as soon as their services were made available. Housing loans were also touched upon by Mr Barry Avho said that one thing the committee was not in agreement with the Government in was the policy of discrimination between the. men from the Middle East and from the Pacific war zone. It was not the soldier's fault that he was ordered to the and yet the official policy was- to stand down the men from the Pacific in favour of those who had given longer service. The committee felt that there had been far too much discrimination in this respect. The question of higher education for men whose training in this respect had been interrupted by war service was answered by special burserie& which could be made available for men in special circumstances on the committee's recommendation. The committee was functioning fully, met regularly and was handling the job in as thorough a manner as possible; it was definitely run on businesslike lines.

Mr Sullivan spoke of the wider application of rehabilitation reminding the meeting that it w-as a responsibility wheh devolved upon the community as a whole and embraced all individuals. There was nothing wrong with the Government's plan of rehabilitation but he declared we were inclined to fall down on its application. There was a hue and cry against State control and even with regard to the job of getting our soldiers back into civil life we were threatened with this, feature. If wc came to finally rely upon it w-holly • we would' never carry out the plan as it was intended. No plan could succeed in this respect until it had the voluntary co-operation of the people. He pointed out that there were still; 1QO } OQO men from overseas who had! I

yet to be demobilised and "this would constitute a major problem. Speaking ol' land settlement he urged that instead of merely exchanging farms with existing farmerg', that those men who desired to go on to the land should be. given fresh holdings j snch as would be available at Galatea. Messrs C. F. Thomas E. R. Dillicar and D. McCallum also spoke on the subject the latter finally moving that, each man returning from overseas should\be given exemption from rates and taxation for a term equivalent to his years of service to a limit of £400. This was put to the meeting and carried unanimously;, j