LOANS FOR SERVICEMEN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 23 October 1941, Page 4

LOANS FOR SERVICEMEN

FINANCIAL provisions announced! b.v Mr Nash for helping to establish discharged servicemen in civil lifet are very generous, as of course they ought to be within the bounds of prudence. Those wishing to take up farming on their own account will! be able to get loans up to £3OOO and up to £1250 for stock and implements j at reasonable interest rates, advances I on property being allowed up to 100 per cent of its value where this is j merited. Table mortgages will be j arranged in both cases with a liberal rebate allowance in the early stages.' In providing the men and their fami-i lies with a home the aim is to encourage them to build new houses. For this purpose the maximum loan will be £ISOO, arranged through the State Advances Corporation. Here, too, advances within the limit stated may i be up to 100 per cent of the value of | the section and building. In cities' where values are high, this maximum of £ISOO may not be found sufficient. Loans enabling men to set up in business will be made at the same rate and within the same margins. As wdl as being liberal these, measures have the merit of simplicity. Added to what many of the returned servicemen will have been able to save for themseves they should enable them to get a good start in callings they followed before the war or in occupations of their) own choosing where they will not be wage-earners. In this war many of the men have joined the Air Force almost fresh[ from a post-primary school and will have scarcely started out in any j career except that of fighting fori their country. Others will be very j unsettled and undecided about what' they want to do until they become 1 acclimatised to civil life once more. Besides financial assistance they will; need sound and friendly advice.) Someone with tact and understand- 1 ing will be needed to give it to them,! as much as to see that, as far as, possible, these men do not become discouraged through making a false, start as to guard against money being wasted. Especially will this 1 apply where men decide to go farming without any prior knowledge of what kind of life it involves. The Government is going to give them a training where this is necessary. If they find they like farming the men will have a chance which they would' not have had before of becoming farmers in their own right. The barrier to taking up farming as a career has nearly always been inability to find enough capital to finance the venture, but this part is to be made much easier for the exservicemen. The other side of the farming question will be the acquisition by the Government of suitable land at reasonable prices. It is presumed that, in other occupations, as with farming, specialised training will be provided where required. Many of our future tradesmen and business and professional men will need it. To make finance easy for rehabilitation in civil life is to go a long way in easing the transition but in many instances problems more complex than those associated with money will arise, even among men who return in normal health. These will largely be human problems—of the mind, of the spirit—which, unfortunately, it will not be in the power of finance to solve. Yet their solution will be fundamental to the success of this type of returned serviceman in his more hum-drum and in some ways more exacting life as a civilian.