FAREWELL TO MR C. MILN

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25713, 27 January 1949, Page 6

FAREWELL TO MR C. MILN

.WORK FOR RETURNED SERVICEMEN

APPRECIATION BY R.S.A.

Members of the Christchurch Returned Services’ Association, country branches, and sub-associations, and members of kindred associations, met last evening to bid farewell to Mr Colin Mi In, who is leaving Christchurch to take up a position at Hawera. Mr Miln has been president and vice-president of the association, and has now been made an active honorary life member. The Mayor (Mr E. H. Andrews), who was present with the Mayoress (Mrs F. Hardy Cookson), expressed the regret of the citizens of Christchurch at Mr Miln’s departure, and spoke of the able way in which he had served the men of two wars. Mr E. F. Willcox, representing the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association, spoke also of the services performed by Mr Miln for former servicemen, and particularly of his work for land settlement problems. He had had at his fingertips every matter vital to former servicemen. Mr G. W. Dell, chairman of the Christchurch Rehabilitation Committee, said that there was not a committee concerned v. ith returned servicemen on which Mr Miln had not served. Others who expressed the good wishes of their organisations to Mr and Mrs Miln were Mr T. W. Russell, president of the Tin Hat Club, and a past-president of the Christchurch Returned Services’ Association; Mr J. Moore, representing the Canterbury committee of the Rehabilitation Department; and i.lrs H. A. Bishop, president of the women’s section of the Returned Services’ Association. Mrs Bishop presented Mrs Miln with a posy and a gift f *om the women’s section. and the president of the Returned Services’ Association (Mr H. E. Batchelor), on behalf of members, presented Mr Miln with an easy chair. Mr Miln in reply said it was important that the Returned Services’ Association should take its part in the community life of the Dominion. The association must hold its place in the esteem of the community if it was going to be a vital and integral part of the life of the community. It represented a big section of the population, and to some extent a vital section of the people of the Dominion. Mr Miln paid a tribute to the co-opera-tion he had received from the heads of various Government departments in Christchurch, particularly those associated with land settlement. “I hepe that within the next year or two. in Canterbury, all men wanting to settle on the land will be suitably settled,” he said. A musical and elocutionary programme was presented by Mrs W. Collins and Mr Claude O’Hagan.