REPATRIATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 38, 13 February 1920, Page 4

REPATRIATION.

The Government was slow to grapple with, the whole difficult problem of repatriation, but the new Department, which deals with employment,, assistance in business, and training, but not with land settlement, has done a great deal to make up for lost time. The record of the first eleven months of the Repatriation Department's operations just issued is an and satisfactory document. While there may be room for criticism of detail, it shows that the Department lias done excellent work in helping the army of returned men to become absorbed again in civilian life. In the eleven months the Department placed 14,000 mon in suitable employment, and the number on the unemployment resistor was 251. These figures and the fact that it was found necessary to pay unemployment allowances to oniy 831 out of the 50,000 who returned is a record of which the Department may justifiably be proud. At the date of the issue of the report only thirteen men were receiving ftis allowance. Full particulars are given of the training and financial operations of the Department. Training" has been arranged for 3500 men, of whom 600 have finished their course. Of those undergoing training last month 553 were workers in wood and 843 in metal, and 322 were learning to farm. The loans advanced to establish soldiers in business aggregated fCOC,OOO, of which £50,000 has been repaid, and in addition a large total has been provided for the purchase of furniture and tools. Of. the 2G68 business advances 1072 were in the Auckland district, 86!) in Wellington, 452 in Canterbury, and 275 in Otago—a rather impressive index to the prosperity and progress of the provinces. The policy of setting up soldiers in business is like land settlement, in that its success will be tested by time. We have felt rather dubious about one aspect of it —the encouragement to soldiers to open small shops, which has seemed to be an .overcrowded field. A certain proportion of failure must be looked for in these business enterprises of soldiers, but the Department and its proteges seem to have made a good start. Now that the greater part of the work has been done, the Department will no doubt be able to carry on: with less Cutsidc help and at smaller j cost. I