BROADER BASIS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 194, 15 May 1944, Page 4

BROADER BASIS

Rehabilitation Board Strengthened

SPECIAL COMMITTEES APPOINTED

“To enable the Rehabilitation Board to give full effect to its policy, the Government has authorized the board to exceed its established limits of assistance where special circumstances justify such action,” the Minister of Rehabilitation, Major Skinner, said last night. “At the same time authority has been given to strengthen, the board by the appointment of representatives of the State Advances Corporation. the Lands and Survey Department, and the Native Department, to the board as members. The new board now comprises the Minister as. chairman, the Director of Rehabilitation, representatives of the two departments, and the corporation, the Secretary to the Treasury, and Messrs. S. W? Gaspar, C. W. Batten, and H. L. Cullen.”

To enable decisions to be expedited in individual cases, the Minister continued, the board had set up a number of committees from its members, all under the general control of the tioard, to deal with different types of assistance. The rehabilitation loans committee would deal with all applications for loans. The lands settlement committee was a joint committee of the Rehabilitation and Land Settlement Boards which would be responsible for the acquisition, development and settlement of land. The Maori rehabilitation finance committee would deal with applications for financial assistance from Maori ex-servicemen. The trade training committee had in addition to the board members the secretary of the Labour Department, the Hon. R. Eddy, Mr. D. I. Macdonald, of the Manufacturers’ Federation. Mr. W. E. Leadley, of the Disabled Servicemen’s Re-establishment League, and Mr. R. G. Ridling, of the Wellington Technical College. It would deal with applications and plans for trade training. The education committee, which also had as additional members, Sir Thomas Hunter, of the Universify of New Zealand, Lieut.-Colonel D. G. Ball, Army Education and Welfare Service, Dr. C. E. Beeby, Director of Education. Wing Commander E. Caradus, R. Educational Service, and Mr. S. T. Barnett, of the Public Service Commissioner’s Office, would deal with all applications for educational assistance. The Minister added that there was also a standing executive committee to deal with urgent matters, and consideration was being given to the delegation of further powers to the district executive bodies on which local committees would be represented, but no finality had been reached on that point. The appointment of committees would not alter the operation of the rehabilitation scheme, and ex-servicemen were advised to make, their application to their district rehabilitation officers and local committees.