DISABLED EX=SOLDIERS

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 16 November 1929, Page 5

DISABLED EX=SOLDIERS

LAND SETTLEMENT DISFAVOURED.

SUGGESTIONS TO COMMISSION

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, Nov- 15. When the returned soldiers’ rehabilitation commission continued its sittings to-day Mr 0. N. Campbell, Commissioner of Crown Lands for North Auckland, wlio is himself a returned soldier, gave a comprehensive review of the land settlement question.

Expenditure in advances to returned soldiers to purchase, develop and stock farms in his district had exceeded £5,000,000. He summarised his views as follows: —

1 ‘The responsibility and hard work necessary for land ownership is too much for a war-worn or disabled soldier. The returned soldier whose desire was to settle on the land and who possessed the necessary strength and ability has already 'been repatriated under the discharged soldiers’ settlement scheme.

“The New Zealander is temperamentally unsuited for any form of community settlement. ’ ’ The chairman, Mr J. S. Barton, S.M.j said land settlement offered a solution of the difficulty in only a few of the cases of the distress among exservicemen which it was the purpose of the commission to relieve by evolving some broad scheme. He regarded Mr Campbell’s evidence as highly important. The Government had done a lot, said Mr Barton. It was all very well to criticise, but much of the criticism of the discharged soldier settlement was only being wise after the event. Sir James Gunson, president of the Auckland Provincial Patriotic and War Relief Association, said that at no time since the Great War had there been a termination of the duty to provide useful and health-giving occupations for returned soldiers. He suggested the Government and organisations concerned in the work since 1914 should continue their activities with the co-operation of all classes of the community. Sir James advocated the - subsidising of labour in both town and country to enable employers to use the services of men not capable of normal effort or output, and the stimulation of New Zealand industries by revision of the Customs tariff-

Mr William Slaughter, officer in charge of the Auckland office of the Department qf Labour, spoke in support of the formation of a corps of commissionaires as suggested by the committee of the Returned Soldiers’ Association. He Avas of opinion this could be done Avithout seriously affecting the principle's of trade unionism and if properly handled such a scheme AA'ould enable the men concerned to regain their self-respect and selfreliance and enable the majority of them to earn a. living Avithout making any serious call on the Govenimcnt in the shape of subsidies.