REHABILITATION FUNDS.

Evening Star, Issue 23680, 13 September 1940, Page 9

REHABILITATION FUNDS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —If Mr. Barnett and the Mayor will cast their minds back a little they will discover the reason for any apathy on. the part of the public towards the Queen Carnival objective—the rehabilitation of soldiers upon their return to civil life after the war. It is only a short time ago that the old Otago Patriotic and General Welfare Association, still in existence, held its annual meeting. The executive then complimented itself on the manner in which it had handled the funds since the last war, but it did not say what it was going to do with the £32,227 18s 2d which it still has invested. That money was subscribed 25 years ago for the rehabilitation of soldiers. Why was it not used up? There is more than that much worth of distress among old returned soldiers at the present time. Also the secretary of the association, a public accountant in business, receives a high salary to handle the affairs of the association. It is stated that part of this goes to pay his'rent, but he would have to pay that irrespective of whether or not ho was the secretary of this association. Mr S. P. Cameron, vice-chairman of the present Queen Carnival Committee, and apparently a member of the old Patriotic Association, tried to justify the latter organisation at the Regal Revue the other night, but no amount of talk will justify the withholding of this huge sum of money, either from the deserving ex-soldiers now in our midst, or, alternatively, from its absorption into the fund to which the public are being asked to subscribe. That is one reason why the present appeal is not meeting with the response it merits. Another is that the Government some time ago passed a law making it obligatory for all employers to take back into their service after the war any men who may return. If that is clone there should be very little rehabilitation work to do. After the last war many returned soldiers found that their jobs had been filled by others, principally girls, and they could not got them back. Others were unfit or in receipt of a small pension for injuries received. There were many deserving cases which the Welfare Association could have helped, but did not. There still are many such. There are many, too, who would have been glad to administer the small affairs of the association for a quarter of what it is now costing. May I ask is the secretary, Mr Grace, a returned soldier? If these funds must still be hoarded up, why, not hand them over to the R.S.A. to administer? It is a body which has the organisation and knows all the deserving cases. If that cannot be done, then let this £32,000 odd be handed over as the nucleus of the £IOO,OOO the present committee hopes to raise. If the old Welfare Association hangs on to it much longer, all the men for whom it was collected will have died from old age, or, prematurely, as a result of war stress and injuries. If the public are apathetic, who is to blame? Surely not they.—l am, etc., Critical. September 12.

[Our correspondent is 100 per cent, wrong in the judgment he expresses regarding the earlier fund. It is fortunate that the fund of the older Patriotic and General Welfare Association is not used up, because 30 to 50 claims a week are still being handled by it. Cases or hardship continue to arise, as the result of service in the last war, which could not be met, or met with sufficient promptness, by official pensions. A special need is made by the large proportion of returned men who for JO years may not be incapacitated for ordinary work by their war services, but “ break up ” at an earlier age than those who have not known the rigours of warfare. A few thousand pounds are being paid out from the fund each year, and the remaining principal is being depleted almost to that extent. The secretary of the association, who is a returned soldier, also handles claims or some 3,000 Imperial and Australian cxservicemeu of the last war, resident throughout New Zealand, though actual payments to them are met out of their own funds. The patriotic fund being formed now is for soldiers of the present war, and it is natural that the two funds should be completely separate. We understand that the expenses of administration of the original fund compar© more than favourably with, those of other ISfew Zealand, centres.* Ed.j E.S.]