£1,000,000 SPENT

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 305, 20 September 1943, Page 6

£1,000,000 SPENT

Year’s Rehabilitation Work

Something like £1,009,000 had been spent by the Rehabilitation Board, which had been operating for over twelve months, in carrying out the rehabilitation of ex-soldiers, stated the chairman, Mr. IM. Moohan. speaking at the opening of the disabled servicemen’s vocational training centre in AA’ellington on Saturday. Nearly £BOO.OOO of this sum, he added, had 1 been for the purchase of farms, erection of houses, acquisition of tools of trade, businesses and furniture. About 1,400 men from this war had been placed in State rental houses or those purchased for them by the Rehabilitation Board.

Nearly lODO men had received free-of-interest loans for the purchase of furniture, and about 120 men had been placed on freehold farms. Every farm which had been purchased through the board was a first-class economic unit on which men would not break their hearts with work, or go bankrupt. The board had refused to be stampeded into paying more than the economic value iu these instances. ■ ' ,

'Hundreds of men, through the agency of the board, were learning trades, and being paid £5/5/- a week in wages by the board while doing so. The 'board could give the people a very definite assurance that what happened after the last war was not going to happen again. Every department of State had received instructions from the Government that preference had to be given disabled men, who could look forward to a future of security.