The Sun FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1928. A BATTALION IN DISTRESS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 387, 22 June 1928, Page 8

The Sun FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1928. A BATTALION IN DISTRESS

CONSERVATIVE citizens who never in any circumstances would indulge in the loose exaggerations of Socialists assert that there are at least 1,000 returned soldiers out of work in Auckland. The lamentable fact as to the serious extent of unemployment among war veterans was discussed yesterday at the annual meeting of the Auckland Provincial Patriotic and War Relief Association, and occasioned such plain speaking as should cause the whole community to blush with shame. A battalion of ex-servicemen is in distress and must in their ways of peace march on charity. All that need be said about this mockery of patriotism was said sorrowfully yesterday by Mr. V. J. Larner, vice-chairman of the War Relief Association: “Surely we cannot look on calmly while men who fought for us at the war are walking the streets willing to take any work, but unable to get it.” Surely not, but what is to be done about removing this “reflection on the community”? It is clear that the association has done its work thoroughly and well throughout an unusually hard year. Indeed, the interpretation of its obligations to returned soldiers in need of financial assistance has been broad and reasonably generous. When the citizens of the Auckland Province a dozen years or so ago subscribed readily to the patriotic funds, for returned soldiers, it was not then anticipated that a considerable portion of the money ever would be required for the relief of unemployment distress. It was expected confidently that the funds would be available for the quick and adequate assistance of returned soldiers whose health, though quite good at the cessation of the world war, might break down later as a result of wounds and gruelling war service experiences. Even the most pessimistic citizens with knowledge of what liad happened after other wars really believed that similar poverty and misery for old soldiers could never happen again. It was thought that, at the very least, as a reward for service and sacrifice, a grateful country would keep able-bodied ex-servicemen in employment. History apparently never alters. Patriotism is most perfect when the guns of a nation are shooting at an enemy. Last financial year the War Relief Association dealt with 4,023 applications for some form of relief. Many of the applicants had been compelled to seek aid because of hopeless unemployment. Moreover, the stress of general unemployment had been so acute that it was almost impossible for any returned soldiers suffering from slight disabilities to obtain work at all. There is nothing more pathetic than competitive misery. What may be done about removing miserable conditions which are admitted to be disgraceful and intolerable? The association is willing to do all it can to relieve unemployment distress among returned soldiers, and is even prepared, if needs be, to spend all of the remaining funds on that purpose. This is an admirable sentiment, but unless something more be done to remove the causes of distress through unemployment, there will be no final remedy. The first task of the Government and Parliament should be the relief of unemployment distress, and one of the shortest cuts to the promotion of more employment would be a reduction in general taxation by a million pounds or two. Local bodies, charitable aid boards and patriotic relief associations are staggering under the claims upon their resources for the relief of unemployment distress. If the Legislature cannot remove a reproach on the Dominion its members ought to be dismissed for sheer incompetence. SMALLER CLASSES A STATEMENT, of which a summary appeared in The Sun i'i recently, has been issued by the New Zealand Educational Institute, arguing the need for smaller classes in Ihe primary schools. “Arguing” is perhaps not the right word when the need is generally admitted, and admitted by the Minister of Education himself in the clearest possible language; but a good ease will stand repetition, especially when the action which it justly calls for is disappointingly delayed. It is a fact that the size of many quite monstrously large classes has been reduced. But there are still hundreds of classes of 40 and 50 pupils. Individual attention, without which education on the soundest lines is impossible, cannot be given to classes of this size. Teaching often resolves itself into a problem of discipline and mass instruction; and even the ablest teachers find themselves forced to compromise and admit expedients in which they see the lowering of their ideals and the defeat of their aims. The Minister has frankly admitted the facts. He has, in fact, summarised them in their sharpest form in a statement that the average primary class is between 45 and 60 pupils. But the difficulty in the way of reform is the difficulty of money. The country cannot have smaller classes without more rooms and more teachers; and both mean more expense. Mr. Wright’s estimate is that the “remodelling” of schools would cost about £.70,000; and the cost of additional teachers might be as much or twice as much. It all depends on the length to which reform is pushed. But the time when such reform is advocated is the time to urge two considerations. One is that a building policy must be a modern building policy, and fortunately it is cheaper to build a really modern classroom than to build the old type of educational tomb. The other is that we must give up thinking of expenditure on education as an unreal investment, grudging it and stinting it in consequence, and so robbing the nation" of°the results of what is, in the long run, its most practical investment —perhaps its only practical investment.