DISABLED SOLDIERS

Hokitika Guardian, 31 October 1929, Page 5

DISABLED SOLDIERS

FURTHER EVIDENCE. (By Telegraph—Per i’ress Association.) DUNEDIN, October 31. A statement on behalf of the Manufacturers’ Association was put before the Commission on Disabled Soldiers to-da.v. It stated that the Association considered that from an industrial viewpoint the present position was due to industrial depression, and to the too early closing down of tlie Repatriation Department, and to no organised effort by the-civil population backed by the Government .to absorb partially fit men. The Association thought a proportion might be industrially absorbed if the repatriation scheme were reopened and amendments were made to the Arbitration Act permitting disabled exservicemen to he employed as underrate workers, such being brought to the award wage by an economic pension. Men could also be absorbed as telephone attendants, mail tally clerks, messengers, janitors, etc. As an incentive to the employers scheme, similar to the King’s roll scheme in Britain, it was suggested also that an influential local committee could do much to. find niches for the men.

Major Jeffery mentioned that in England many factories employed exservicemen on piecework, they working just as long as they felt fit. Mr Lane, representing the Manufacturers, considered men wanted more sympathetic treatment. In the case of a man periodically off it would he better to give hiV a smaller all round wage and pay him for the time he was laid up.