REHABILITATION OF SOLDIERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24417, 1 October 1940, Page 11

REHABILITATION OF SOLDIERS

TO THE EDITOR Sif, —Behind his criticism of the statement of Mr Hedges, your correspondent, “ Patriot,” in his concluding sentences, appears inadvertently to answer another question recently raised in your columns. Says “ Patriot “An ‘ all-in ’ war policy means more than the suppression of a few Communists, lengthening the hours of work, and holding carnivals for a charity fund for returned soldiers. It means the State claiming the life and property of all its members for the war effort. When the war is ended and over, then it may be possible for the remnant of the property to be restored to the original owners after those who have done the service have been generously rewarded.” To quote from your issue of September 11 in reference to another meeting: “. . . Said Mr Arthur Barnett (chairman of the Queen Carnival Committee) at the meeting of the Otago Provincial Patriotic Council yesterday afternoon. ‘ I can’t understand the people at all. and am beginning to feel that they do not understand what rehabilitation means.’” And in the same meeting “The Mayor (Mr A. H. Allen) said there could be no doubt that there was some underlying feeling permeating the public and affecting their reaction to the appeal. He could not say what it was. but he could say that it was by no means peculiar to Dunedin. It was being experienced all over the Dominion. . . .’’ “ Patriot ” defines the “ underlying feeling,” that we do not intend our sons shall be fobbed-ofT with largescale public assistance and Poppy Day appeals, as some of us have been since die last war. —I am, etc., Returned Soldier.