RETURNED MEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 153, 30 June 1944, Page 6

RETURNED MEN

REHABILITATION PLAN

MINISTER'S REPLY TO R.S.A.

A defence of his position in holding: tlie appointments of Minister in Charge of Lands and State Forests in addition to the portfolio of Rehabilitation was made by the Minister of Rehabilitation (Major Skinner) when he attended the annual conference1 of the New Zealand Returned Services' Association today to receive a deputation of the delegates. Major Skinner said he did no work in connection with the other Departments that did not have a definite bearing on rehabilitation, and also answered a number of other points put to him by the conference. Mr. T. 'G. Taylor briefly presented the conference's views upon the organisation of the Rehabilitation Department .which: had been previously covered by the president Nand the chairman of the committee on rehabilitation.' Mr.- J. H. Hessell referred particularly to housing, and suggested the use as temporary accommodation of vacated camps which already had the necessary cooking and drainage facilities. It could be argued, he said, that such a move was perpetuating slum conditions, but such camps would be better than much of the accommodation at present in use, and being under Government control would actually stop the perpetuation of such conditions. They should be used as clearing houses only, and those who occupied them should have first call on other houses as they became available, their places being taken by others less fortunate. Mr. Hessell also ■ advocated the reduction of the interest rate for servicemen to 3 per cent., to bring it into line with a similar reduction made during the, last war. His third point was the question of the release- from service after a certain period of young men who had joined at the age of 13 and would be handicapped in a return to civil life by the fact that they went into the Services directly from schools and universities and had no particular occupation to which to return. There might be difficulties in the way of such a measure, ' but the association asked the Government to give consideration to it. ' Mr. B. Malone presented the request of the association to afford returned men settled 'on farms the right to acquire the freehold on the; basis of a right to acquire it after five years' . lease if they so desired and a proviso . that if this were granted there should \ be no right of sale until ten years had ■ elapsed. The association, he said, was particularly opposed to what was cnown as the Waikato Settlement 1 Society title. The president, Mr. B. i J Jacobs, assured the Minister that < they would co-operate loyally with ] him in .his task of rehabilitation. . CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. j The points raised by the deputa- , tion had been raised and . discussed \ previously with the national executive j of -the association, said. the Minister in reply, and the executive had been . given the reasons for every step j taken in the administration of re- . habitation work. He realised that , there was nothing of a political nature behind the R.S.A. criticisms, i\m • generally speaking they had all been j of a constructive nature. He said j that an organisation was- being built up to give full information in regard • to rehabilitation. ■• Referring to the request of the ; association that he should hold the : Rehabilitation portfolio only, instead of those also of Lands and State Forests, Major Skinner assured the , conference that he did no work in ' connection with the Lands Department J that was not connected with rehabili- * tation, and this similarly applied to i State Forests. "I gave an assurance j that I would not undertake any work ' that was not definitely connected with J rehabilitation, and I meant every > word of it,"" he said: "One of' the points most criticised in rehabilitation < is the land settlement scheme, and i that is definitely tied up with re- 1 habilitation. It is absurd to say that i the Rehabilitation Department should i have a lands department of its own i and include branches of all the other i departments'- which are tied up with s rehabilitation. That would take ten c years 'to organise:,.properly, because \ we have riot the men trained in the j I work." ;■-.■■., c Referring to the contention of the c i association that other departments t | should be,agents of the Rehabilitation r "Department only where the functions , 1 intermingled,; the Minister said that * •this .-was-so^in practice. The findings j ■of the Rehabilitation Board were final \ and the State Advances Corporation ,or any other department, was bound ■• to put into operation any decision £ of the board. "The State Advances Cor- c 1 poration is not ; administering re- r habilitation or any other department either," he said. ■■■■■■ J Decentralisation would be carried c out just as soon as it cbuld be organ- J ised. Present difficulties were shortage r of trained staff and office accommoda- c tion, and while-there were '"some v district committees'..which" could im- t immediately be entrusted with the further administration of the work, others had not had sufficient experience in handling returned men to be able to undertake that task at present. Auckland would be the start for decentralisation. ' TEMPORARY HOMES. } A man could not be considered re- ' habilitated until he had a home, the ' Minister continued, in a reference to ] Mr. Hessell's remarks about tempo- { rary housing, and a scheme was under j consideration to use certain vacated i camps as temporary houses. The { Government's policy would be to use : existing temporary accommodation, and not to build it, because it - took { very little longer to erect a State '' house than a reasonable temporary ] one, and the same short-supply mate- 1 rials, such as plumbing and electrical ' fittings, would have to be used in each. There would probably be criti- ! cism of the Government's action in this regard, and the support of the lassociation was appreciated. Other 1 steps to relieve housing difficulties , would be a more rigid enforcement ' of the present regulations in regard A to non-essential building, and in this ' respect, too, the association could co- ■ operate. «

Because tho Air Force was now probably New Zealand's most important force, and the best means of defence for a small country, he doubted if there was a great possibility of the Goverriment being able to release the youngeiv men at the present time, or to reduce the training programme. < The fact that the Government had had- to bnng legislation into effect regarding it seemed to prove that the freehold principle in land had failed Of 4000 leases granted to men of the last war, only 301 had taken up their right to the freehold, and 81 changed to deferred payment. Of the 301 many had later disposed' of their properties. His own opinion was that land for ex-servicemen should be on renewable leases, but he would present the association's views to Cabinet.