THE DISCHARGED SOLDIER.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14703, 2 June 1920, Page 6

THE DISCHARGED SOLDIER.

(Bv Harold Spender.)

CREATING A GRAVE SOCIAL PERIL.

The conscript army is now demobilised —and all praise is due to the War Office for the regularity and despatch with which 'the' .work has been accomplished. But the very perfection with which the nation has been taken out of the camps and the barracks and put back into civilian life has created a new problem which is as yet imperfectly realised. Perhaps the cases of suicide which are already beginning to appear in the' papers will recall the attention of the public to this pressing trouble. For is : t not indeed a terrible reproach to this country should have escaped from slaughter by the Germans to be driven to suicide in their, own land because they cannot secure the work and pay -which they require to carry on their existence?

It is estimated that there are 300,000 discharged soldiers at present out of smployment. That is not a matter in which the Government can he blamed. They have done their part of the work with thoroughness, for what with their month's pay, their gratuities, and their unemployment grant these men have had every help that the State could be expected to give them. Those who are always shouting for economy ought to be the last to blame the State for being unable to take over so heavy a responsibility as the maintenance of all this vast host of men who mve fought in the war. All that the State can do is to give them a -re-start iu life. The rest must be left to society. It is there that the real failure has occurred. it- is too found thatwhen tlie State aids have been exhausted these men are still unable to obtain work and wage in their old spheres of life. . Take these cases of suicide. J.he employers claim that tliey found it necessary to fill the men's places and could not go on waiting. That is surely a very poor attitude to. take up at the present moment. The men themselves waited long; enough. Is the verv fact that thev have been away a- long time to be taken as an argument for treating them with neglect? Is it to be tne rule that the late-comers arc to be treated worse because they were not let off earlier? That is surely an invention of social injustice. Take one case that I investigated recently. . An engineer employed in a gas company enlisted without leave in the spring of 1915, when the country stood in the greatest need of men. The company now refuses all responsibility for his action, a?id denies that it has any duty to take him back. Is that a pioper reward for patriotism. There are many men now in this town of London reduced to the very lowest point of destitution because they fought in tlie war, and for no other reason. Whnt is more, they have to <=tand bv and see men who have not fought in the war reaping the fruits of their astute worldly wisdom. Is that the way to encourage men to fight for their country? But it is not only the employers wno are to blame. It is all classes. At tlie present moment there are plenty or men required in the building trade, and it would be quite easy to draft into that trade practically all the discharged soldiers at present out of work. 15ut the building trade refuses to take them except through the channel of apprenticeship, which is practically impossible for men of their age Some of tliem are going m-as unskilled laborers, but they are not welcomed, and great numbers of these unemployed ex-soldiers are quite unfitted for such a part in life. They liave not the muscle—but they -have the brains ! which could be well employed for the country at the present moment. . What is wanted is a better spirit m all classes towards these discharged soldiers. I do not claim that other men should be debarred from work, but I do say that, other things being equal, the preference ought to be_ given by the employer to a man who has fought, for his country. In regard to the disabled- men, the intervention of the King has largely got over that difficulty, and the local authorities are helping. But- the ablebodied discharged soldier has quite as much claim for help as the disabled man. It is not his fault tha.t he was not disabled, and he is, at the present moment., a- precious asset to his country and ought not to be neglected. The Bolshevist agitators in the poorer districts of London are finding a richer field among these' men than - amongst any other part of our population. To treat them with neglect is really to create a grave social peril. It is toprepare a. culture bed of grievance into which the seeds of social unrest will surely be thrown, and will surely produce, a most fruitful crop. All over Europe it is these discharged soldiers wlio create the gravest peril to existing society, and England is by no means frfee from the danger. Th'e State can do no more than it is doing. It 'S . not desirable «to pauperise these men. What is desirables is that all classes of society should combine to recognise this great'national and patriotic claim, welt deserving their instant and earnest attention. - '■ ' '