The Dominion. MONDAY, JULY 31, 1944. JOBS FOR EX-SERVICEMEN

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 260, 31 July 1944, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, JULY 31, 1944. JOBS FOR EX-SERVICEMEN

Experience of the methods in practice for the return of ex-servicc-rnen to civil employment has given rise to an increasingly critical attitude on the part of the men themselves. It is natural that they should expect, and right that they should be given, employment of the kind best suited to their individual aspirations and capacities, with opportunities for bettering themselves through their own efforts and on their own merits. If in this respect men are experiencing frustrations now, when the process of rehabilitation is yet in its preliminary stages, what is likely to be the state of affairs when the change-over from war to peacetime employment assumes large-scale dimensions ? « The Government is apparently relying on public works of various kinds as a convenient and speedy absorbent. Men, according to report, are being put into jobs for which they have no natural bent, and which appear to offer no stimulating prospect of self-improve-ment’in status. Many would prefer to take up vocations in private business, where personal initiative would have more scope. But positions of this kind will not be readily available unless private business is given much-needed facilities and incentives for free activity and expansion. ■ It is much more important to the welfare and prosperity of the country that the business life of the country should be revitalized in this way than that large numbers of ex-servicemen should be absorbed against their personal inclinations and to the frustration of their hopes and ambitions in schemes of public works. The best opinions on the question agree that the sole justification for public works schemes as employment for ex-servicemen is that it provides a convenient medium for taking up the slack, for absorbing, what may be a temporary surplus of labour during the period of transition. fl he first requirement of the situation is the rehabilitation of the great normal reservoir of employment, private business and industry; public works should be regarded as simply,a standby. Some timely comment on these aspects of rehabilitation appear in the latest Bulletin issued by the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce in association with the Department of Economics of Canterbury College. “It seems certain,” the writers point out, “that if rehabilitation is to be effective at least 80 to 90 per cent, of ex-servicemen will have to rehabilitate themselves, and that Government assistance must be confined to the 10 or 20 per'cent, who need it most.. The main task of the Government should be to assist in the creation, of such conditions as will best assist ex-servicemen in . rehabilitating themselves. In this way the Government would minimize its own problems and reduce it to manageable dimensions.” But to do this (it is emphasized) ‘its chief objective should be the creation of the maximum freedom for production and trade to expand and to adjust themselves to the changes that must oecur as soon as the war is over. Rehabilitation and re-employment are required not only by ex-servicemen but also by those who have been displaced from tlieir normal occupations and taken up wartime activities. Under control, any Government would be puzzled to know how and where to establish or expand industry to absorb them, and genuinely economic and self-supporting industrial expansion would be hard to secure. For it is not only men, but also industry and trade, money and finance, that need to be rehabilitated. The foregoing observations are very pertinent as warning-signals against any tendency to think that by an elaborate system of Statecentralized control the vast number of men and women to be rehabilitated in the peacetime economy of the country will automatically drop into appointed places.