RETURNED SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3090, 22 May 1917, Page 6

RETURNED SOLDIERS

CONFERENCE AT DUNEDIN

. Delates from the Heturned Soldiers' •Aesociatioiis throughout New Zealand will hold their annual conference at Dunedin from May 25 to' Hay 29. The Minister of Defence (Sir James Allen) will be present for eome part of the time. The Wellington delegates will be Messrs J.. I). Harper (president New Zealand .Returned Soldiers' Association) N. Broad (treasurer) J. 1. Fox (manager Wellington .Returned Soldiers' Ohib), 1). J . b. Seymour (secretary New. Zealand .Returned Soldiers' Association), and Colonel J. G. Hughes, D.S.O. There will be about 25 delegates, 15 being from the North Island.

-the Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association will move:—"That no Heturned Soldiers' Association affiliated to this association shall call upon its members to support any particular candidate, or party of candidates, for membership of tap House of Eepresentativea." Anions the remits to be considered are:—That a Minister of Beturned Soldiers' Affairs should lie appointed; that a New; Zealand Beturned Soldiers' Association newspaper should be started; that a direction be given to local associations to amend their rules as follows:—1. Any person who has been discharged from the Expeditionary Forces at his own request shall be membership on the following conditions only; (a) on prodnetion of medically-unfit certificate; (b) oil re-enlistment .for service overseas.- 2. Any person on being discharged from the Expeditionary Forces, and afterwards drawn in the ballot, shall not be eligible for membership tintil returned to New Zealand after service abroad. 3. The rules of membership of local associations shall be amended to provide for the admission of nurses.

Another proposal to be placed before the conference .is' that, the associations as a body shall take np the question of enemy aliens being allowed to follow their private occupations, while British subjects are being sent to the front, and are liable to be called np for national service in New Zealand in civil capacity. Matters referred to the conference by the executive will Soldiers' Corps; affiliation with the Returned Soldiers' and Sailors' Imperial League of Australia; provision for efficiency in the transfer of members among associations ; standardisation of association books; association attitude upon the . matter, of soldiers discharged from camp; Government treatment of mental eases among returned soldiers; pensions; land policy; association boundaries; headquarters' adinistration; period of annual subscription; dental treatment; Appeal Board. General business will include:—Reception of returned soldiers, medical boards, promotions, publication of association booklet, war album and art unions, location of forthcoming conferences. '