JUGOSLAVS RELEASED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17275, 26 September 1919, Page 9

JUGOSLAVS RELEASED.

WORK IN NATIONAL SERVICE.

COMPULSION DISCONTINUED

ACTIVITIES IN WAR PERIOD.

The activities of the Jugoslav organisation branch of the Defence Department have practically ceased, and the office at Auckland, which has been in charge of the commissioner, Mr. John Cullen, 1.5.0., for nearly two years, will be closed at the end of this month.

Mr. Cullen, who has just returned from a visit to some of the works on which the Jugoslavs were employed, stated yesterday that these men had been released from their obligations under the war regulations, as far as employment on public works was concerned, and, if they so desired, could leave th e works on which they had been employed during the latter portion of the war period. The two Departments in which the Jugoslavs had been employed were the Land Drainage and the Public Works, the former carrying out extensive operations in the Awanui-Kaitaia district, North Auckland, Kerepehi, Hauraki Plains, and Thornton, Rangitaiki. The Public Works Department had employed men on the North Auckland Main Trunk line, the Kaihu branch, the Oakley gap, the Kaikohe-Okaihau section, the Okahukura section of the Stratford-Main Irunk line, and the Waiuku branch, and on stop-bank works near Paeroa. Mr Cullen said that some of the men had already left the works on which they had been employed, but a number were remaining where they had been placed. As to whether the men were likelv to return to the gumfields and resume" digging, Mr. Cullen said he had no information, but this would depend upon whether the Lands Department would issue gumdigging licenses to the Jugoslavs.