REPATRIATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 December 1918, Page 4

REPATRIATION.

PROVISIONS OF BILL. , (By Telegraph---Speeial Correspondent.) Wellington, Last Night. The Repatriation Bill was introduced by the Mihistef for Defence. The Bill creates a Department of Repatriation and a Ministerial Board of Repatriation, which 'Will appoint a Director as its chief administrative officer. The board, for the purpose of decentralising work, may establish district and local boards and committees. It will be the duty of the board to make such arrangements as it may deem necessary for the restoration of discharged soldiers to civil life and civil employment. The board may establish schepies and institutions for the educational, industrial, and vocational training of discharged soldiers, and for the care and maintenance of the men wholly or partially disabled. It may also, subject to the regulations, grant financial assistance to returned soldiers by way of loans, secured or unsecured, not exceeding in any case £250, to enable the men to establish themselves in civil employment or occupation. The Bill provides that on complaint being made by the Director of Repatriation, a magistrate may cancel the discharge of any soldier who is, by reason of drunkenness, idleness, or misconduct, unfit for immediate and effective restoration to civil life. The man will then resume his status as a. member of tlio forces. The operation of the Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Act is extended to include men who have been classed lit, absolutely or contingently, for service beyond the seas and have served as members of the forces in a training camp and remained attached to that camp on November 12, 1918, the date of cessation of hostilities with Germany.