FINANCE NOT LACKING

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 138, 8 March 1945, Page 6

FINANCE NOT LACKING

Training Of Disabled Ex-Servicemen REPLY TO CRITICISM “Finance is not lacking, and never will be lacking, for the training of disabled ex-servicemen, or indeed for any form of rehabilitation,” said the Minister of Rehabilitation, Mr. Skinner, last night, when replying to allegations made by the president of the Auckland U.S.A., Air. A. P. Postlewaite, on the, reasons for the financial position of the Auckland branch of the Disabled Servicemens Reestablishment League. Air. Postlewaite had alleged that a dozen men had hail to be refused admission to the league s vocational training centre in Auckland because the branqji had reached the permissible limit of its overdraft, and required new plant, raw materials and money for instructors’ salaries. “Mr. Postlewaite has come to be regarded as the stormy -“trel of rehabilitation affairs in Auckland,” said the Minister, “and though possibly he has the best of intentions I wish he would make more certain of his facts before rushing into print. He claimed that the league had no Government grant, but as a member of the Auckland committee it is his business to know that last year alone we granted the Disabled Servicemen’s League £7OOO to help train disabled ex-service-men. If the Auckland branch has overdrawn to the limit, then that is primarily a domestic matter between it and the Dominion executive, with whom the Rehabilitation Board deals entirely. Men Awaiting Admission. “The board has not yet been officially approached in this matter, but I know that the Auckland branch’s first intimation that it needed more instructors reached the Dominion executive’s office only on Monday, the very day that Mr. Postlewaite chose for his latest outburst,” said the Minister. “If Mr. Postlewaite and his fellow members of the Auckland committee can convince the Dominion executive of the league that more instructors are needed up there, then the Government will hasten to assist them. In this particular case, however, I understand that there are a dozen men still awaiting admission to the Auckland training centre, but. at the moment there are only 53 ex-seryice; men trainees there, under a total or seven instructors in the various trades. There are also 21 servicemen niployees, at least partly skilled, and there is plenty of space for more personnel, so I cannot understand why those on the waiting list have not been immediately absorbed into some form of useful training or occupation while the question of more instructors is being settled. Surely Mr. Postlewaite does not think it would overtax the present resources of the centre to distribute a dozen men among seven instructors and 21 employees. “As it is we subsidize the pay of trainees according to their progress, and we certainly are not going to let the dozen men in question go begging for lack of finance to take them in hand. That is too much for even Mr. Postlewaite to imply. He also need have no fear that the number of men who could be trained in a trade or craft suited to their disability would be dependent on th size of the league’s overdraft. The disabled must always be our first responsibility, and the task of rehabilitating them cannot be regarded in the cold light of a business proposition. As long as the league keeps up its fine. past record, and endeavours to manage its. affairs in as businesslike a manner as is practicable, it need never lack finance.”