AID TO DISABLED SERVICEMEN

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27177, 22 October 1953, Page 12

AID TO DISABLED SERVICEMEN

Decline In Grants By Government MINISTER REPLIES TO CRITICISM (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, October 21. As the work of the Disabled Servicemen’s Re-establishment League diminished, there must be a corresponding reduction in Government grants, to the league, said the Minister of Rehabilitation (Mr T, L. Macdonald) at the league’s nineteenth annual meeting today. The Minister was replying to the president of the league (Mr J. Murphy), who had said: “It is most disappointing to have to report that the Government grants for administration have flgain been substantially reduced.”

“As the war recedes into the background, the number of servicemen requiring rehabilitation assistance becomes less, and the work of the league as well as the Rehabilitation Department will diminish also,” said Mr Macdonald.

It was intended that after - March 31, 1954, the Rehabilitation Department Would no longer be a separate department, he said. There would be some reorganisation and ‘‘streamlining’’ of rehabilitation committees, but the Rehabilitation Board would continue as previously.

“There will be no change* in the relationship between the board and the league,” said the Minister. •Although there had been a drop in the league’s profit from sales in its shops, he did not think profit was a measure of the league’s success, said Mr Macdonald. This was in the training of disabled servicemen.

The Government had given £B9BO in grants and £12,000 in subsidies in the last year.

The time could be envisaged, said Mr Macdonald, when the training facilities of the league would no longer be needed. The league’s work would then be the placing of its former servicemen in part-time or sheltered employment.

President’s Views Mr Murphy said the league had reached a critical stage. Numbers of servicemen who had spent long terms in hospital were now coming forward for training. “When the league undertook this work, it understood that its expenses would be reimbursed.” said Mr Murphy. “Because of the reductions, the league finds it difficult to meet obligations.” He considered that the reductions should be restored. . “In view of the additional work undertaken during the last’year and in view of the large savings in pension payments as the result of training former servicemen, it is not very encouraging to members who give their service voluntarily to this work to realise that the Government grants are substantially reduced each year,” said Mr Murphy. The Director of Rehabilitation (Mr F. Baker) said that the league would have to keep in mind in its future operations and commitments that the time was coming when it would receive a fixed yearly grant from the Government.

He doubted whether the grant, exclusive of subsidies, would be more than £7OOO a year. After other speakers had discussed means of disposing of about £lOO,OOO of stocks in league establishments. Mr Baker proposed that lists of slow* moving stocks' be made with a view to their disposal at the best price available.