N.Z. REHABILITATION

Grey River Argus, 12 May 1945, Page 2

N.Z. REHABILITATION

LABOURING WORK NOT TO BE BANNED P.A. WELLINGTON, May 10. Members of the New Zealand Vocational Guidance Association were urged bv the Minister of Rehabilitation, Mr. Skinner, in an address at the annual conference to-day, to discourage the idea that no ex-service-men should do any labouring work. Above all the Department had to be practical. He said that much labouring work would have to be done in New Zealand after the war, and a proportion of the ex-servicemen would be employed on it. The mere fact that a man had been overseas for three or four years did not debar him from doing such work. “ I have heard a lot of loose talk about the country, that we are not going to have our men coming back out of the forces to pick and shovel work,”, he said, “but we cannot all be professional men, and there are a lot of roads to be built. There is a tremendous lot of labouring work to do, and many men arc not lit for other work. It is a very serious thing to encourage or to advise men or women to undertake a .job they, cannot finish, or to undertake training in a career for which they are not suited. We have -'o be practical in these things, even if it does hurt a little.”