DESTITUTE RETURNED SOLDIERS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 151, 29 June 1931, Page 8

DESTITUTE RETURNED SOLDIERS

(To the Editor.) Sirr-The £10,000 the E.S.A. recommend the Canteen Board to make available will relieve some of the immediate distress among soldiers which the War Relief Funds cannot assist, but will not provide for a fraction of the 8000 to 10.000 meu on the unemployed .. register to-day. These mun should be given, at least one day's extra work each week to supplement their present earning!) on relief works. _ Their average weekly income to-day .if employed on relief works, is 13s 3d for single men, 2Gs for married men with two chit-, drcn, and 37s Cd for married men with three or more:. children. •: Nino shillings' and 12a Gd per week in;! supplementation of these amounts would* scarcely then giv,; thiJtn enough to buy food, let .alone the boots and clothes they so.badly.need. The suggested suspension of, war debt payment is the light of hope for mankind, which if accepted may be the of tho tide toward normal" conditions, but there are at least three more weary .winter months for the unemployed to face before we can hope for those better, conditions to even begin. It is during these three months •• the destitute among returned soldiers require help most, but even to give them' one. extra day . each week for three months would, oost about £50,000, and as the money is/;not in sight there io-no present,,-hope for thq unemployed returned soldier .other than to exist under the-wretched conditions lie is now suffering. ■..'■ .:'■ '■■}~ ■:''■.: '[."' t - .'-'j' ■'■■.'.'■■'.. ''I ; ".. • '■ . These are the men.people-chewed when they left our shores, the men who climbed the- heightsVoX Gallipbli, who ' plougho'i through the mud and -wire' of Passcbaendale, who stormed 'and. cleared tho hills of Messines; who sang and'laughed in the billets and fought and suffered in the trenches, tho men the people promised should never want—now they are destitute in tho country they fought to save, yet the barns are full of wheat to make bread. There is more butter and cheese and meat than we can consume. The wool to make clothing is a glut in the 1 market, the stores aie bulging out with goods owners cannot sell, while many thousands' of our citizens, among whom aro returned' soldiers, the very men who wore promised they would be provided for, must accept charity or starve. What n mockery! These meu want-employment. Their labour is the State's greatest a&sci Th.it which they ixro doing on relief works is largely waste and is leading to. a perputuation of tho problem and not its solution.

Fifty thousand pounds is required to give unemployed returned men one. extra day's work a week for three-months to keep them from destitution, at least until the spring. I care not if the money comes from the Canteen Board, the War Fund? Council, the Government;' private individuals who benefited by the war, or any other source, but it should bo found if we aye going to honour the most sacred promise that was over made to men. No one can come into close" contact with these men, who are the bravest and most loy&l citizens, without feeling the changing outlook which poverty is breeding. Many of them have had experience in farming, and are anxious to establish themselves on the land. Some of the money now spent on unemployment in the cities would bring in some of the idle land-and provide a home for at least a number of them.

I make this earnest appeal to every map and woman in the country to honour the promise they gave when- their very homes were in danger.—l am, etc.,

G. MITCHELL,