RETURNED SOLDIERS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 36, 11 August 1933, Page 14

RETURNED SOLDIERS

AN AUXILIARY COMMITTEE

HATAITAI AND ROSENEATH

A largely attended meeting was held at ITataitai last evening, when it was decided to form a Hataitai and Kosencalh Auxiliary Committee of the Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association. Colonel A. Cowles, president o£ the Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association, gave some particulars of why auxiliary committees were formed. He and other members of the Returned Soldiers' Association, said Colonel Ccwles, noticed that many o£ the men applying for relief were not the usual typo of men who did so. It was thought that if auxiliary committees were fqrmecl in every small district — and these would number eighteen, including Plimmortou—tho R.S.A. should be able to get into close touch with every returned man in the district, and ascertain his needs, this being a better method than getting a man to apply for assistance in a queue between 10 a.m. and noon. To give gifts to men to a certain extent demoralised them, and the K.S.A. wanted to pay out what was earned. He wanted members to regard the movement as something to which they could T>ut in more than they would get out, although they would get much out of it. The R.S.A. wanted to promote social activities so as to recapture something of tho wartime spirit of comradeship. Full details of how it was proposed to give employment to returned soldiers were .related by Colonel R. S. McQuarrie. One I instance of how the scheme was functioning, he said, was furnished in connection with the supplying of firewood. The Porirua sub-branch cut .up the firewood and delivered it at Wellington, where the Wellington R.S.A. received it, and put unemployed men on to bagging it The , firewood was sold to unemployed returned soldiers at a fraction of its usual cost. The Porirua sub-branch was paid so much a cord for the firewood,- and the sub-branch i paid its unemployed.' men on their off days. So when the .Wellington R.S.A. 1 spent £00 on a scheme like this, about £200 was dispensed on wages, ami this represented between £200 and £000 in commodities. There would be vegetable plots on which unemployed returned men ' would work, and the vegetables would be sold to the unemployed ex-soldiers at a i fraction of their cost. From the point of view of social activities, a concert party 1 had been formed, and it was proposed to I have a male voice choir and an orchestra. Colonel McQuarrie asked for those in emj ployment to help in*giving work,,the rate , being 2s 6d for a half-day's work a month. j ' Captain S. Frickleton, V.C., gave details of the working of the Kilbirnie Auxiliary i Committee. i ■ The rules as functioning for other 1 auxiliary committees were accepted by the I meeting. Officers were elected as follows:—Chair- , man, Mr. J.. H. McKay; vice-chairman, Mr. J. Carswell; hon; secretary. Mr. A. | Hose; hon. treasurer, Mr. V. W. Reed; committee, Messrs. ,L. A. Hill, C. J. 11. I Davidson. N. Gow, R. H. Williamson, and J. Phillips.