REPATRIATION METHODS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17111, 17 March 1919, Page 5

REPATRIATION METHODS.

AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENTS. [from otra own cobrespondbnt.] SYDNEY, Mar. 7. j The Federal Government is spending hugo sums on the repatriation of soldiers. If repatriation operates satisfactorily, nothing will be said, but if—as seems highly probable— Department gets into a worso muddle, the Federal Government will be called to a bitter accounting. _ | There is an office of the Repatriation Department at work in every centre ready at work in every centre, ready to deal with every soldier from the moment Ihe gets his discharge. Elaborate ma-' Ichinery has been designed, based on the usual Government Department system, I and a great mass of regulations has been evolved with a view to covering every contingency that may possibly arise in connection with repatriation. As a result, the Department is choked in the I \nagnincance of its own thoroughness. It 'would take a wizard to interpret the reI gulations, and everything about which ' there is the least doubt has to go to JMel'bourne. Excessive centralisation, has | caused great congestion and delay, and , complaints are innumerable. The Government is trying to silence these by allowing liberal sustenance payments. Exsoldiers and their families are being maintained while inquiries are made, whereas if all power was not held in Melbourne, they might go immediately to work. The expenditure on sustenance, therefore, has already reached huge dimensions. ' The Government now proposes to dis-. tribute £500.000 among local bodies, to be used on works of various kinds on which returned soldiers aro to bo employed. Each local body will receive between iioiw and £400, and if it has no ex-sol-diers in its area requiring assistance, men may be sent in from other districts. The State Minister for Lands has just announced that his Department, assisted by the Repatriation Department, proposes this year to place 300 ex-soldiers on poultry farms and 200 men in vineyards. Each man will be provided with land and a house free of charge and, until production commences, lie will not have to pay rent. In addition, during the period of waiting, he will receive £2 a week* for himself, 4s for his wife, and 2s 6d for each child. He will also be provided with a horse and cows. In West Australia, the Repatriation Department is assisting the formation of a company with £10,000, to take over a fishing fleet of 12 ketches, to be manned by returned soldier's with headquarters at Geraldton.