DISCHARGED SOLDIERS.

Press, Issue 16678, 12 November 1919, Page 3

DISCHARGED SOLDIERS.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION. It appears that the conditions of discharge of disabled soldiers from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force are not generally understood. A soldier who has suffered a disability, whether owing to wound or sickness, which iB due to, or aggravated by, his war service, is discharged from the New Zealand ditionary Force as soon as his disability is so far removed as to enable htm to undertako some civil occupation. • Ho is then given a pension proportionate to the percentage of disability he is sufferstill undischarged, a soldier labours under certain disadvantages as compared with the discharged man. In the first. • place, he is not permitted to undertake any civil occupation for remuneration. In the second place he is not able to apply for land under the Soldiers Land tor Settlement Act, nor to receive advances of money from the 1 Government to assist him in taking up A civil occupation. Third, he is still subject to certain disciplinary restrictions frcm which, the discharged man is free. , I It is clearly to the advantage of both ' the soldier and the State that he should be given every opportunity to resuino a civil occupation as soon as possible. Apart from the material benefit attached to work, occupation is of the greatest advantage in combating the state of mental lethargy and introspection which is engendered by prolonged illness and convalescence. In order further to enable men to follow occupation more continuously, evening clinics have been arranged in each main centre, where out-patients may receive treatment at such hours as will not interfere with their, employment. In the case of permanent totallydisabled soldiers, or which there is .1 comparatively small number, discharge from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force is effected when their condition has reached a final stationary condition which cannot be further improved by ] treatment. • It may be pointed out that in certain cases where pensions are supplemented or an attendant paid for by the Pensions Board, a man may actually receive more in pension when discharged than he did in pay prior to discharge.