REPATRIATION.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16435, 31 January 1919, Page 7

REPATRIATION.

SUSTENANCE ALLOWANCE.

(special to "the pbess.")

WELLINGTON, January SO. In the course of an address to the conference of nurserymen now sitting in Wellington, the Acting-Prime Minister gave some indication of tho provisions to be contained in the repatriation regulations. The Minister said that where a man could not honestly get work, the Government did not want to encourage him in idleness by paying him whilst ho was idle, but the Repatriation Board would assist him by providing him with a sustenance allowance, which would be paid to him so lone as he was genuinely out of work. There was a scheme for certain men to be paid a weekly sum, which ho did not wish to name. There was a scheme by which the departmental officer and the local committee would arrange for the tuition and the payment of a sustenance rate to a man while he was at a technical school or other institution training for entry into a new occupation, or completing a period of apprenticeship. The Minister said that the sustenance rate wouldHbe exclusive of any pension tue man might be receiving. The departmental officer, with the approval of the local committee, would be able to grant financial assistance by way of loan, with interest, for the purchase by the widow of a soldier with children of furniture, or by an incapacitated eoldier. In the case of an applicant being sent to another place to take up employmet, sec-ond-class railway fare would be paid to him.