THE BEST ECONOMY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 205, 27 May 1944, Page 6

THE BEST ECONOMY

When he officially opened the vocational training centre of the Disabled Servicemen’s Re-establishment League at Dunedin during the week,, the Minister of Rehabilitation is reported to have said that these centres, and others to be provided, “were not required in any way to be economic propositions.” Possibly the Minister meant that they were not expected to pay their way, in a commercial sense; it is more than doubtful if they ever could. Their paramount aim, as Major Skinner went on to say, would be to assist disabled servicemen to hold their own in the world of trade and commerce. If they succeed in doing that then they will have been thoroughly sound economic propositions. It has been said that “from the economic standpoint disability has the same effects on the individual as on the State, however it may be brought about,” and it follows that if the handicap can be removed or lessened to any extent, the benefits must also be mutual.

The medical attention necessary for these men represents the first stage, and then comes the time when physical restoration can be more thoroughly ensured by association with some form of industrial training, or by actual employment. And it cannot be denied that there is, as a British journal has stated; “an economic advantage in restoring disabled persons to productive employment.” A committee appointed in Britain, in a report on this matter issued a year ago, said that “there is a national duty to see that persons who have suffered disablement are given the opportunity of leading as full and as useful a life as their disablement permits.” That is the aim of these training centres, and while nobody expects that they will be self-supporting, that does not mean that they will not be soundly economic. Every man who can be trained, if not to take his former place in the industrial life of the community, to make some contribution to the aggregate of national production in some useful form, represents an economic gain to the community, and in the process he will undoubtedly be a much happier citizen. It is impossible to estimate what amount of physical disablement the war will inflict, but provision must be made to meet all requirements. There must be a very valuable influence in the discovery, by those who have been disabled, that they can still enjoy the expectation of regaining, if not fully then to some extent, a place in the normal life of the community and enjoy the rewards of their own efforts.