DISCHARGED SOLDIERS BUREAU

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2695, 15 February 1916, Page 4

DISCHARGED SOLDIERS BUREAU

A MONTH'S EXPERIENCE. By TelesTaph.—Press Association. Auckland, February 14. Since the Auckland Discharged Sol.diers' Bureau was established, just a month ago, employment has been foundfor about 50 ex-campaigners and men who have broken down under the stress of training in camp. There are still J some 70 applicants for work on the books of the office, and others are making their appearance in greater or less numbers every day. Experience of conditions of the Bureau so far as it has gone seems to contradict one thing that has been ■widely entertained as to the influence of the war upon social evolution. • It has been assumed that as a result of the .soldiers' experience of open-air life . in the field tho inclination of townsmen on their return will be to forswear urban occupations and betake themselves to the country. The disposition of the majority of the men who have applied for work up to date is in quite the opposite direction. Practically none of tho townsmen are inclined to go to the country, and even among men whose former occupations were on the land there is a preference for city iobs. A considerable number of positions in the way of light farm or dairy work are now at file disposal of tho Bureau, but hardly any of the applicants are prepared to undertake them. For the last month there has been a standing [ offer from a farmer at Maramarua to take several men for easy work, at wages to be fixed by the bureau according to the soldiers' capabilities, but so far not one soldier has been prepared to go. Mention of milking, on even so light a scale, and even of tho oversight of milking machines,, seems espscially distasteful to applicants.