LOCAL AND GENERAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 April 1942, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

State Rental Houses. The N.Z.R.S.A. has been advised by the Minister of Housing, Mr Armstrong, that the representations made by the Dominion executive committee that a minimum of 25 per cent of State rental houses should be made available to servicemen now returning from the present war, has his wholehearted approval. Contracts Suspended.

“All Housing Department contracts are being suspended rather than terminated,” said the Minister of Housing and Public Works, Mr Armstrong, when discussing the defence building programme and the effect of it on the housing situation in an interview last night. He added that contractors were being paid in full for the work done except for a retention of 5 per cent, the object being that they and their men could be readily reinstated in jobs as soon as the defence work was completed or if for any reason there was likely to be any loss of time between the completion of one job and the commencement of the next.

War and Football. Owing to the war having depleted their ranks four old senior teams will not take part in the Otago Rugby Union championship this season. They are Southern (winners of the competition last season and for several years past), Taieri (the most promising team in the competition last year), Pirates and Alhambra (the club which defeated Masterton some fifty years ago in a match which was generally looked up as being for the club championship of New. Zealand). The teams in the competition-are University -(2), Dune-j din, Kaikorai, Zingari-Richmond, Union, and two Army teams.

Helping Returned Soldiers. The view that the opportunity for greater service consequent upon the operation of the Rehabilitation Act would be fully availed of by the league was expressed by the Minister of Defence, Mr Jones, in addressing a special conference of the New Zealand Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment League in Wellington yesterday. The league, he said, would come under the Rehabilitation Council and the Rehabilitation Board, and while that meant that he would relinquish his supervisory control, he was sure that under the Minister of National Service, Mr Semple, the league would receive all the consideration to which it was entitled.

Mufti Allowance.

Advice has been received by the Dominion executive committee of the N.Z.R.S.A., at a recent meeting, that the Government had agreed to the grant of £7 10s mufti allowance to those members of the Forces . (Navy, Army, and Air), who had not served overseas during the present war, conditional on them having rendered fulltime continuous service for at least 12 months. The members of such forces who serve ocverseas are eligible for a mufti allowance of £l2 10s subsequent to discharge. The committee discussed these details, and considered that the differentiation between service in New Zealand and service overseas was difficult to understand, in view of the fact that mufti allowance was available to a serviceman on his return to civil life, and it was decided to ask the Government on what principle the distinction. represented by £5 more for the overseas serviceman, was made.