WORK FOR DISCHARGED SOLDIERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3215, 27 October 1915, Page 48

WORK FOR DISCHARGED SOLDIERS.

ORGANISING LOCAL COMMITTEES. (Feom Oub ' Own Cobeespondent.) WELLINGTON, October 25.

A statement concerning his plans for finding employment tor disenarged soldiers was made by Mr Herdman to-day. Ho approves highly of the Auckland organisation, and hopes to establish similar schemes in the south.

“As you know,” ho said, “I went to Auckland to endeavour to arrange with the gentlemen of that city to assist in finding employment for returned soldiers resident in the Auckland province. It is useless to attempt to do our work successfully in Wellington unless we get the warm co-opera-tion of influential people living in different parts of New Zealand. This we certainly got in Auckland. The Mayor (Mr Gunson), Mr Parr, M.P., Messrs George, Elliott, Bankhart, Lamer, and Spragg met me, and enthusiastically agreed to undertake to act as the agents of the discharged soldiers department throughout the Auckland province. The Labour Department will help the local committee of business men, and I am certainly looking forward to good practical work being done. “The modus operand! will be something like this: From our register in Wellington we will extract all the information which we possess about Auckland soldiers who want employment and who reside in that province. This information will be transmitted to the Auckland committee, and the men will be interviewed. Every case will bo carefully considered, and local efforts will be made to place the men. Weekly progress reports will bo sent to the head office in Wellington, and thus we will, I hope, bo able to keep our resistor up to date.

“ The Auckland organisation for the management of patriotic funds and for giving relief to dependents seemed to me to be excellent. The Mayor informed mo that ho iiad practically arranged to amalgamate the whole of the Auckland patriotic funds. When his scheme is completed there will bo ono central controlling committee with branches_ scattered throughout the Auckland province. The branches of this organisation will bo available for the purpose of finding employment for soldiers out of work.

“ I was specially struck with the care that is being taken by the Patriotic Committee in dealing with applications for relief by soldiers and dependents. A relief committee sits periodically as a board, and inquires minutely into each case. The investigations are conducted in a thoroughly businesslike fashion, and from the glimpse into the operations of the Relief Committee which I was priviliged to get, I was firmly convinced that its members are doing work of great value.

“ I am leaving for Dunedin, Invercargill, and Christchurch to-night, and hope before my return to make arrangements with tho citizens of these places to assist in carrying on the work of the discharged soldiers’ department on principles similar to those agreed upon with tho committee in Auckland.”