THE REHABILITATION BILL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24735, 11 October 1941, Page 8

THE REHABILITATION BILL

Parliament has adjourned over the week-end. The House of Representatives will resume its sittings on Tuesday night. The Prime Minister anticipates that the session, will be closed on Thursday next. Among the legislative proposals that have yet to be dealt with is the Repatriation Bill. This will generally be regarded as a measure of the first importance. For that reason it should be accorded careful and deliberate consideration. It has a two-fold object. It is designed, in the first place, to secure that a soldier shall, when the war ends, be placed in a position that will not be inferior to that occupied by him at the time of his acceptance for active service. In the alternative, it provides that a soldier’s widow or, in some cases, his widowed mother, shall be accorded relief on a similar scale. In the second place, it contains provisions under which industries, both primary and secondary, may be converted from a war-time to a peace-time basis with the least possible interference with the welfare of the persons employed in them. This second object of the Bill is one that would more suitably be dealt with in a separate measure than in one of which the purpose is the satisfactory repatriation of the men and women who are members of the fighting forces. There are implications of it, moreover, that merit a closer examination than can possibly be given to it in the day or two that apparently remain before the session is brought to an end. The controllers of industries, for instance, that have undergone considerable expansion in order that the emergencies consequent on a state of war might be adequately met may be reasonably concerned about the inclusion in the Bill of a clause under which they may be required, after the war, to continue to give employment to hands who have been en-

gaged in special work relating to the war or made necessary by it. For it is to be observed that the Bill entrusts Ministers with very wide powers which may quite conceivably be arbitrarily and vexatiously exercised. While the principle of the Bill, therefore, must command public sympathy there are details of it that are less admirable. The measure is indeed one that should not, as the Government contemplates, be hastily passed.