Work for Returned Soldiers

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 124, 19 February 1935, Page 11

Work for Returned Soldiers

Sir, —May I, through the medium of your valuable space, place before the citizens and more especially the business people of New Zealand this appeal to them to exercise a little more generous treatment toward our returned men? That this treatment is not being exercised is evident by the numbers who are to-day either on sustenance, relief work or walking the roads in an honest attempt to iind a job. I have made inquiries in several directions and have been told that when one of our citizens requires a bit of gardening done he rings up the Returned Soldiers’ Association and asks if they have any applicants for jobs, but when he requires a man for a trained or skilled job he never bothers them. No, he advertises in the papers or else he offers a larger salary to someone who is at present in a job. Now, Mr. Citizen or Mr. Business Man, I am one of those luckier ones in life who happen to be in a job, and who has not so far had to face the dole, or relief work, or any other of the soul-destroying methods. Nor am I a Communist or a Bolshie, but just like you all, just one plain citizen who is raising his voice or his pen, if you like, to appeal to his fellow men on the one part on behalf of a section of his fellow men on the other part, who have done a good job and did it well, too, and don’t deserve the reward that is being doled out to them. Many of you who control the avenues of employment are returned men . and know what they, like yourself, went through. I ask you, is it right to ask them to suffer, in lots of cases their families too? Quite a lot of their families are young boys just on work age, and as things are now what hope have they in life? What a rotten state we have got the world into for posterity! Now, fellow citizens, you who control the wheels of industry in our fair land, the next job you have to find a man for where responsibility is needed, inquire if there are any returned men available who have the necessary qualifications. They won’t be hard to fipd. ' Thanking you for this opportunity of raising my pen on'behalf of the “Digger.” —I am, etc., SOLD AT RENDU. Wellington, February 16.