REPATRIATION PROBLEMS

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23352, 11 June 1941, Page 4

REPATRIATION PROBLEMS

IMMEDIATE ACTION 4 RECOMMENDED PLAN AND CONFERENCE SOUGHT The calling of a conference immediately to consider rehabilitation and the immediate formulation of a rehabilitation plan will be recommended to the Government by the Christchurch branch of the Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment League. The branch will also as’: the Government to recognise the urgency of returned soldiers being given preference in filling vacancies. According to a report supplied after a meeting of the executive of the branch yesterday, when repatriation problems were considered fully, members suggested that the time had arrived to impress on the Government the need for proposals, so that the men would be rehabilitated into civilian life "instead of walking the streets unemployed.” “Attention was drawn,” the report stated, “to the promises made that men enlisting would not suffer financial embarrassment as a result, but the position to-day is that numbers of the returned soldiers are forced upon Social Security benefits because work is not available.” The meeting recommended the calling of a conference because of ‘‘the urgent position that has arisen by the return of large numbers of soldiers who are not able to obtain positions in permanent and suitable employment.” It was decided that the following should be invited to the conference: The Returned Soldiers’ Association, the Re-establishment League, Manufacturers’ Association, Agricultural and Pastoral Association, Employers’ Association, Federation of Labour, Industries and Commerce Department, Technical College, and the National Service, Social Security, State Advances, and Lands and Survey Departments. It was considered imperative, the re. port stated, that a rehabilitation plan should be formulated to deal with the matter before the problem became too acute to be handled, and that such a scheme should cover training and placement in established agricultural industry, established manufacturing industries, in new industries, and in State departments.