REPATRIATION COMMITTEE.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 March 1919, Page 4

REPATRIATION COMMITTEE.

A meeting of the New Plymouth Repatriation Committee was held last evening, there being present: Colonel C. H. Weston (chairman), Messrs. J. R. Rowlands, W J. Chaney, C. Carter, H. R. Cattley, R. W. D. Robertson, T. Furlong, T. C. List, R. J. Clark, F. W. Okey, E. B. Ellerm and the secretary (Mr. A. S. Allen). The chairman gave a full and interesting account of the proceedings at the recent conference at Wellington of chairmen of the various repatriation committees and district boards at which the Ministers constituting the board and the Director of Repatriation were met, and the general lines of the policy to be followed agreed upon. The Director of Repatriation intimated that the committee's jurisdiction extended to the Egmont County, Clifton County and Taranaki County districts. Messrs. Weston, Furlong and Chaney were appointed an executive committee to deal with emergency matters. A loan for furniture was granted to a returned soldier. Applications from ex-soldiers for employment and others for assistance in learning trades were received and dealt with. The employment sub-committee recommended that all employers of labor be circularised as to the importance of promptly notifying the secretary of any opening in their establishments, and, if possible, that preference be given to returned soldiers; that full advantage be taken of the Act and regulations for training disabled men for new positions by instruction at the technical' schools, the director of which was entirely sympathetic to the proposal, and was prepared to take ex-soldiers for engineering, agriculture and commercial classes. The report and recommendations were adopted, und the same sub-committee was empowered to meet Mr. Gray, with a view to deciding upon a general scheme, and to report to next meeting A good deal of routine business was transacted,