REHABILITATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 February 1942, Page 4

REHABILITATION

OF RETURNED SOLDIERS MANY PHASES DISCUSSED. AT FIRST MEETING OF COUNCIL. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. Many phases of the re-establishment of returned soldiers in civil life were discussed yesterday at the first meeting of the Rehabilitation Council in Parliament Buildings. The Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, and the Minister of National Service and Rehabilitation. Mr Semple, attended and addressed council members on broad questions of policy. “The whole outlook of the country and the Government and Parliament is that there is nothing within our means and the bounds of common sense that we can do for these men that we ought not to do.” said Mr Fraser. “The board, comprising members of the council, will be set up almost immediately, and your deliberations today as a council will be the forerunner of many meetings, because it is not a short-term job. There are short-term phases of the job, there are men coming back at the moment. There is provision to be made for them, and I know that the council will carry out suggestions and decisions with the most sympathetic attitude possible.” Mr Fraser specially mentioned the nurses, the V.A.D.’s, and others whose interests would become the particular consideration of the one woman member of the council, Mrs S. MacDonald. Mr Semple said that one of the major problems was that of housing. “We must find ways and means of building homes,” the Minister continued. “We must also take returned soldiers whose health will permit and train them to build homes for those who will be coming home later. We can extend these training schools all over the country. The idea of taking five years to make a finished carpenter is stupid in the extreme. The orthodox trades unions have to remember that, too. You can make a carpenter out of a man with a normal brain in 12 months. Machines do the work which at one time made a man a finished carpenter.”