“LACK OF COHESION”

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 285, 26 August 1921, Page 6

“LACK OF COHESION”

PROBLEMS OF WAR RELIEF POSITION OF EX-IMPERIAL MEN In October, 1919, the Applications Committee of the War Relief Association of Wellington addressed correspondence to Sir James Allen—immediately prior to his departure to England to take up the office of High Commissioner for New Zealand—and also to the Prime Minister, in respect to the absolute lack of cohesion between the offices of the Oversea Settlement Committee, the Kings Fund, and the War’ Office, London, regarding the conditions under which assisted or free passages to the dominion were lining granted to ex-imperial soldiers, A Disturbing Factor. Adverting to the matter in its report to yesterday's meeting of the association, the committee made the following statement :— "It is somewhat disturbing to find claims still being submitted, to you by ex-lmperiai men in such, a physical condition that wero employment offered them they could not avail themselves of it. In your (the association's) correspondence it was suggested by you that no person unlikely to become absorbed into the commercial and agricultural life of the Dominion should be sent to New Zealand by the bodies mentioned, yet you have received letters from discharged Imperial soldiers who cannot obtain employment here as makers of dills’ eyes, etc. Other applications are comifig to hand, by letter, from ex-Iniperial soldiers in hospital here, applying for equalisation of their Imperial pensions with those—usually about throe times as great—being received by New Zealand soldiers whilst inmates of tho same hospital. "It has to be admitted that consideration has been given to one of the suggestions embodied in your correspondence referred to:

(a) That the organisations by whom these passages are provided, acting through you a.s their agents, or i (b) The Immigration Department here, operating in a similar way, or (c) The Immigration Department, acting as a New Zealand Government Department, should assist exImperial service men. who may reach the Dominion with exhausted financial resources; for, provided those concerned completed their journey subsequent to January 1, 1921, they are eligible to. receive from the Immigration Department, but this applies to those- who have received free or assisted passages, whilst the others, who have displayed sufficient thrift and initiative to pay the cost of their own passages are left—apart from yourselves—to their own resources upon''arrival. Many Claims. "Many claims have boon lodged with vou by men who have received assistance from the Immigration Department; they have been found employment, or helped in other ways, but a second claim from them to the Department, mentioned does not seem to be tenable, and they therefore approach you. In -some of these cases further assistance is certainly unmerited, but particularly in tho case of a man who has been brought out here under that Department’s assisted scheme. His guarantors respecting housing accommodation and employment having more or less failed both him and tjie Department mentioned, jour committee does not consider it equitable that ho a charge upon your funds, for—although your constitution gives you power to assist any unit of any oftbo Allied armies—your committee holds that tho primary intention of tho donors ot your funds was to benefit disabled soldiers, and those who suffer a breakdown in health as the result of a previously unmanifestod war disability, contingent upon service with the N.Z.E.F., nnd to alleviate the resultant hardships inflicted upon their dependents. "The point is emphasised by the fact that in proportion to your available financial resources, your liability to these men is very much heavier than that, ot any other war relief association within tho Dominion, whilst it is indisputable that many applications will be lodged by them during the years to come. Jhe position, therefore, is considered so important that it was recently brought before the | Minister of Intern al Affairs by a conference with your Executive Committee; subsequently a special of vour committee was held on the 18th instant to consider the, Minister s reply; and further consideration was given to the matter at the meeting of the Advisors- Board of the Federated Avar Relief Societies of the Dominion on Tuesdav, August 16, 1921, when a resolution bearing upon the liability of New Zealand war 'relief Societies in regard to Imperial soldiers was carried. The committee has arranged an interview with the Minister for this afternoon.