THE RETURNED SOLDIER.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 112, 13 May 1916, Page 3

THE RETURNED SOLDIER.

The State Governor, Sir Arthur Stanley, put his finger on the kernel of the repatriation problem when he •■told the conference of local government engineers that "the best thing that could be done for the returned soldier was to put him back into the work to which he was accustomed." His Excellency very righlty scorned the idea of multiplying schemes for transforming mechanics and clerks into agricultural labourers, and vice versa. It is no doubt highly important that adequate provision should be made for enabling men to settle on i,he land, who are expressly suited to such activities, but the whole history of agricultural settlement in Australia supplies an emphatic warning against the folly of attempting to fit the square peg into the round hole. Production is not increased by such methods, nor are the latent resources of the country thereby developed. On the contrary, money and material are wasted; the persons made the subject of such experiments are injured and made miserable, and the entire community has to shoulder a heavy resultant burden. —'Melbourne Age.