A PROTEST

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10277, 12 May 1919, Page 2

A PROTEST

TREATMENT OF RiETUIRNEID SOLDIERS. A correspondent signing himself "E. 0." writes from Napier as under: Report has it that some returned soldiers have had to sleep in iiagley Park, Ohristchuroh, owing to the tact that they were without means to get a bed, and that the Minister for internal Affairs suggested that the .Repatriation .Department, if approached, would no doubt help such men to obtain a bed in future. Now, "Isn't this Dhe dizzy limit?" These men left home and-all, to risk their lives, so chat this country and other parts should not come under the heei of "Unholy" Hun. They arrive back, and it seems are thrown aside like so many dead shells. As to the .Repatriation Department being approached, why the men would have to sleep in the park for at least a month if they had to wait until all the forms and formalities that have to be gone through before such oases could have been dealt with, and then I doubt that they would have got the price of n bed. I believe upwards of two million pounds have been subscribed for the alleviation of distressed returned soldiers; this is disbursed by the local repatriation committees, after a deal of inquiries as to the man's pension, private means, etc. (What a man's pension has to do with it, beats me.) Each committeeman receives £1 per meeting, and the secretary £1 ovei and a'bove his salary j thai is, if ten turn up and they pass payments of perhaps £6O, it costs £ll to do it. How often these meetings are held, I don't know. So, you see, it is going to cost over 20 per cent, of the funds to pay the other SO per cent, out, which will run away with a considerable amount of the money. Don't you think, knowing what the lads have gone through and in many cases suffered, for the good of their countrv and those who did not go, that enough capable business men should be forthcoming to disburse these funds without payment for their services? Do the' people of this country realise what would have been their lot, if the diggers and others had not beaten the inhuman Huns? There would probably have been a German beer garden where those men slept, and the subscribed money would have been under the Kaiser's control. "Get me?" God's Own Country's bosses, Bill Massey and Joe Ward "(wouldn't one have doneP) are having trips to Blighty, every now and then at a cost of about' £30,000 a trip, whilst their "benevolent" underlings, the Government, degrade themselves and the country by allowing their war heroes to "kip down" in open public places, iWhat about itP My advice to the deserving diggers is to demand the best of the country and all it contains, and to see to it that such eases as tho foregoing be not allowed to pass without thorough investigation.