TRAINING MEN FOR THE LAND

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 26, 26 October 1942, Page 4

TRAINING MEN FOR THE LAND

During a discussion in the south'on. the proposal that returned servicemen, without previous experience, who want to take up land should “be given a term of tuition,” a speaker who had served in the last war expressed the opinion that the men would not take kindly to any compulsory scheme. They had, he suggested, had enough of sergeant-majors. This is a matter in which our soldier-settlers and the would-be farmers now serving in the Dominion’s forces might be able to co-operate. There are many ex-servicemen oh the land who are in a position to employ a returned man, and in some cases- perhaps two op more. Some of these farmers had to learn by hard experience and they know the' difficulties that men who have passed through hectic campaigns, with constant movement and prolonged nerve strain, will face when called upon to settle down to the daily routine of civil life. These soldier-settlers would be, possibly, the best instructors in farming methods that the men could have. There would be a bond of interest between them that would not otherwise exist, and the beginner would have before him the example and the achievement- of one who, too, had been through the .fires of war. The understanding and guidance of the elder men would prove of incalculable value to the beginners, and the instruction would be essentially practical. There would be the further advantage that if any of the men who had hoped to go farming found that they were unfitted for the work very little expense would have been wasted either by the individual or the State. Organized co-operation along these- lines, if carefully examined by the branches of the R.S.A., might result in arrangements that would lessen the problem of fitting men for a life’s work on the land.