AVON SEAT

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23317, 1 May 1941, Page 8

AVON SEAT

* NATIONAL' PARTY CANDIDATE NOMINATION OF DR. A. L. JONES The selection of Dr. A. Lexington Jones as the National Party candidate for the Avon seat at the General Election is certain. Nominations for the selection ballot closed with the Avon electorate committee last night and Dr. Jones’s name was the only. one sent forward. The nomination will be considered by the electorate members next Thursday night and then submitted to the national executive in Wellington for approval. . J i . , , , Dr. Jones, who is a doctor of dental surgery of the University of New Zealand, and a master of science in dental surgery of the University of California, is one of the youngest and keenest workers for the National Party in Canterbury. A son of Mr W. Jones, now Mayor of Whangarei, and a former member of Parliament for Marsden, Dr. Jones has taken a lively interest in politics, both general and local. He was born at Colac Bay in 1904, and received his primary education at Rongatea and Titoki Schools. Matriculating at the Whangarei High School, he studied at Auckland University in 1922, then going to the dental school in Dunedin, from where he graduated in 1927. He practised his profession from 1928 to 1939 at Ashburton, where he was prominent in local affairs. He was a member of the Ashburton Borough Council for one term and did noj seek re-election. For several years, he was chairman of the board of the Ashburton Technical High School, and he was also a meinber of the borough school committee. He took a leading part in the organising by the National Party in the Mid-Canterbury electorate for the last two elections. In 1938, Dr. Jones left for California to take a course at the university there, and shortly after his return to New Zealand, he began the practice of his profession in Christchurch. He is a member of the central committee of the National Party for Canterbury. KAIAPOI SEAT FOUR NATIONAL PARTY NOMINATIONS The National Party has four nominations in hand for its candidate for the Kaiapoi seat in the General Election, those of Messrs G. C. Warren, M. E. Lyons, R. G. Brown, and Colonel S. C. P. Nicholls, according to a statement by a party official yesterday. The date for the closing of nominations, which was originally March 31, has now been extended to May 31*. BURUNDI ELECTORATE The date for the holding of a selection ballot will be fixed by the Hflrunui branch of the National Party at its annual meeting next Monday. The Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, M.P., is retiring from the r • t, and it is unlikely that the National candidate will be chosen for another month. SCHOOLING FOR SOLDIERS FREE CLASSES FOR RETURNED MEN SAME MACHINERY AS IN LAST WAR Returned soldiers of this war, as those of the last, who are unable to follow their, original trade/will be entitled to free vocational training to fit them for new jobs. The same machinery as operated, as part of the general repatriation scheme, during and after the last war has already , been given legal sanction in this war. Though no pupils as yet have enrolled from this war’s returned men at the Christchurch Technical College, the principal of the college (Dr. D. E. Hansen) said' yesterday that free tux-, tion - wa. always available to any returned men who come td > the college armed with the necessary certificate setting out that their war service had unfitted them from continuing with their former peace-time calling. It is 'felt that already in this war there is scope for beginning the scheme. Two men home from this war were numbered among the 80 applicants who sought to join the new adult apprenticeship class set up to train boot clickers. A difficulty so far this year is that, apart from these adult apprenticeship classes, not primarily designed for returned soldiers, ' .ere Is no provision for paying men attending the classes, which may have the effect of confining the training to men in receipt of a pension. At many schools throughout New Zealand, notably in Christchurch at the Technical College, hundreds of returned men from the war of 1914-18 took advantage of this free tuition and opportunity to become a skilled tradesman. In 1921 the peak number in such classes, about 300, was reached, but until as recently as three years ago returned men of the 1914-18 war were attending free classes at the Technical College. Typical classes were those conducted shortly after the war for motor mechanics and for boot-repairers. That for boot-repairers was mostly attended by men who had, lost a limb, and remarkable success had been achieved. The men were almost all entitled td full pensions but they preferred to work, and many of them had done very well. In certain of the classes, Dr. Hansen said, men had had to work along with ordinary students of school age. but so keen were the men on attaining knowledge of a new post-war job that they made nothing of such difficulties for grown men as going back to school with youths * years their junior. Further work was done after the last war in enabling men who wished to, to improve their' knowledge of their original trade. For instance, a plumber might have enlisted before qualifying for his certificate, and free training at a technical school after he came back from the war could allow him to pick up the trade again and go on to become certificated.