AN OBJECT LESSON.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2962, 7 April 1919, Page 4

AN OBJECT LESSON.

HOW CANADA HANDLES HER DIS ABLED SOLDIERS. With the approach of peace the problems of reconstruction are looming large, and especially those connected with the returning soldier who cannot work at his old occupation. Canada, has been dealing successfully with this problem for three years and more, and her experience will be valuab.e to us, all the more because conditions in her case approximate our own much more nearly than any of those met in European countries. An account of Canada’s industrial re-education system is contributed by C. Norman Senior to “Industrial Canada” (September). Mr Senior tells particularly of the co-opera tion of manufacturers and of the survey of industrial plants made to find wider opportunities to train disabled men with the least inconvenience to employers. Says Mr Senior: “About 45,000 casualties have been returned to Canada. A special staff of interviewers is maintained by the Re-estab-lishment Department for the purpose of interviewing every one of these to ascertain whether or not his injuries or condition of health are such as to .prevent him from returning to the occupation at which he earned his living prior to enlistment. The proportion of such cases has main tained a fairly constant average of about 10 per cent. An Order-m-Council provides that all who are so disabled by their war-injuries as to be unable to resume their pre-war vocations are entitled to be trained for new occupations. The training

is given at public expense, while the man and his family are maintained through an established scale of pay and allowances, based approximately on military pay and allowances and the Patriotic Fund allowance. “At the latest compilation of statistics approved for specific courses of industrial re-education. . . When the original interviewer reports on the probable neces sity of training, a medical officer sees the man in question and confirms the report from the strictly physical standpoint. This being done, the veteran is brought before what is known as a Disabled Soldiers’ Training Board for the purpose of recommending a suitable new occupation for which he should be train" ’ . . “The members of the soard act as advisers to the soldier. It is the business of the Vocational Officer to bring to the conference information as to the possibilities for training. The medical officer states whether or not the man’s injuries are such as to interfere with the movements necessary to do given work. The business man is asked to advise as to whether or not there is likely to be permanency of employment at decent wages in any occupations that come under discussion. If further information is desired the Board sometimes adjourns until that information is obtained. Every effort is made to establish confidential, friendly relations with the disabled man and to show him that the Board has his interest at heart. Owing to the cost of a course of re-education, great emphasis is laid on the making of a wise selection in the first instance; a little extra cost at the outset being more than compensated ■ for by reduction of the number of false starts which might be made if men were carelessly trained for occupations at which they could not make good. A false start is also very discouraging to the man himself.” It was taken as axiomatic from the outset, we are told, that men should be trained fairly near their homes, a policy necessary in any country of wide extent. Existing technical schools, engineering departments of universities,. and other centres of training were utilised and their facilities made available for the Department’s needs. It was found, however,

"that only about twenty or twenty-five occupations could be taught in schools, and to do this efficiently large centres had to be established in half a dozen different places at great cost. To quote further: ’ “The. psychology of the disabled man, very often well advanced in years, did not respond readily to school methods of instruction. Some variation was found necessary. It was finally decided that

employers should be approached with a view to having men trained under actual shop conditions. A policy along these lines has been adopted and put into execution with great success. Manufactur ers and employers generally have shown splendid willingness to co-operate in assisting the Department to conserve the •country’s labour resources. “Systematic methods have been followed in the Department in order to give every man as wide a choice as possible and in order to occasion employers the the least possible inconvenience. An industrial survey service was organised for the purpose of finding out and listing the occupations which could be performel by men having specific partial disabilities. . In a given shop it might be found that six men stand up and five men remain seated while operating machines, seven men walk about, eight men work at benches either standing or seated. The surveyor will note whether the shop is noisy, whether the air is good, in respect of each kind of work whether good eyesight is required, whether the tools or materials which have to be used are heavy or otherwise. These and numerous other details when tabulated opposite the name of the occupation under the heading of the firm name give the vocational officer the opportunity of judging, whether or not certain men having specific disabilities could be trained for each individual occupation. . “It is specially in the industrial re-edu-cation that manufacturers are interested and their co-operation is urgently required. The value of this important work of conservation has become at once apparent to employers who have had the case properly laid before them. Some few instances of exploiting the labour of men who are supposed to be receiving training have occurred, but such men have instantly been withdrawn from the factory in question and no further assistance in that direction has been sought. On the other hand, the Department takes great pains to recommend the right man for the right job in its training work, and there have been very few instances of malingering. Inasmuch as the man is on pay and allowances from the Department he can easily be penalised for such conduct, and the Vocational Officers have power to do so. “As mentioned before, courses have been approved for 5045 men, and of these 1990 are at present receiving their training. On August 1 the number of men who had received their training and gone into employment was 1081. “Fewer "than 5 per cent, of the men in Canada who have been offered courses of training have refused them, and in some cases this was because they were able to go into a line of work for which they did not require training. A few over 200 have begun courses of training and left them before the course was' completed. Of these there were also some who found they were able to take employment in other lines without the training to which they were entitled.”