After-Care Of Men Who Have Served Sn War

Northern Advocate, 29 June 1944, Page 5

After-Care Of Men Who Have Served Sn War

(P.A.)

WELLINGTON. This Day

The amount of £2.000,000 is the absolute minimum we should aim for,” said Mr. G. A. Hayden, explaining to the Returned Services' Association conference plans for an after-care fund for returned men to be administered by the National Patriotic Fund Provincial Councils, on which the R.S.A. is represented. He gave some very special reasons why the amount should be greater than the £1,500,000 provided after the last war. Two were the relative value of the pound in these times and the drop in the interest rate from 4| per cent, to 3 per cent. A more urgent problem v/as that of 18-year-old enlistments without holding any civilian job or with very little time in work before. It was a fact that the Government intended to pay these men £5 a week while being ti'ained, but they were liable to be very unsettled and would move restlessly from job to job and be a call on the patriotic funds in many cases. Then there was the air force. There were more men in that than in the Second Division overseas, and they were distributed all over the world. Some of them had attained the ranks of wing commander and group captain at the ages of 22 to 24. There were hundreds of squadron leaders and flight-lieutenants. “Champagne Taste”

“Some of these lads are earning up to £ 1000, tax free, and, unfortunately, they live land die, too, at a very high rate,” he said. "Those of you who had commissions in the last war know the expression about a champagne taste on a beer income. li is very much so with some of the air force personnel. The best means to deal with them is a strong welfare fund. They have got to be nursed.

“The average person might look at that type as a waster, but he has done a wonderful job but has that champagne taste.” An after-care fund of at least £2,000.000 must be established, which, with a realisation of the assets of the National Patriotic Fund Boarfli would give a total of about £2,850.000 for the job. There would be a number of calls on the fund in the first few years, but it was in the years to come that the fund would be most necessary. He appealed to delegates to see that the money was net frittered away in the first few years. The conference adopted a resolution that a Dominion total of at least £2,000.000, plus realisations, be provided for after-care.