SOLDIERS’ LOANS

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 October 1944, Page 8

SOLDIERS’ LOANS

MINISTER’S REVIEW

INVERCARGILL, October 24. A total of £378,892 was authorised by the Rehabilitation Board in the form of various loans to former servicemen and®women during September. This was announced by the Minister of Rehabilitation (Mr Skinner) to-day. This brought the grand total up to the end 6f September to £4,005,072 disbursed by the Department in loans alone. The sums mentioned represented loans authorised to 593 applicants in September, and a lota I of 7015 applicants from the day the scheme began to function up to the end of the month. By far the largest item in terms of money was, of course, sums lent for settlement on farms. This amounted to £150,660 for September, and £1,635.447 for the whole period, and did not include large sums spent on the development and subdivision of blocks still to be brought into production. To the end' of last month, 524 former servicemen or their dependants had been settled on single unit farms, including 43 placed during September. Up. to September 30 a grand total of 361 loans, representing £472,717, had been authorised for the erection of houses, and 1289 loans, amounting to £ 1,267,070, for the purchase of homes, said the Minister. Farming and residential loans in-' eluded interest free supplementary loans amounting to £74,542 for houses, and £3lBO for farms. These supplementary loans, he said, were included in the mortgages, but bore no interest,-and did not require to be repaid when the property passed out of the possession of the applicant or his dependants. Even then, in cases of hardship or compulsion repayment might be waived by the Department. Supplementary loans were being made to bridge the gap between normal and present-day lending values. Quite apart from loans, up to September 9, 1944, a total of £330,077 had been disbursed in rehabilitation allowances paid to former servicemen while awaiting placement in work, and £6131 had been paid out in various grants by the Rehabilitation Board and district committees.