WORK FOR MAIMED WARRIORS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14287, 2 May 1917, Page 6

WORK FOR MAIMED WARRIORS.

GREAT RECORD OF PROGRESS IN

FRANCE

PARIS, March 8. The French "Minister of Agriculture (writes H. J. Green wall) has appealed to the various departments of the War Office here to ass-st him m solving the problem of obtaining .sufHcient agrieultral labor for the land.

The two problem.* that confront the Minister are how to substitute mechanical labor for the lacking hand lahor and how to get men back to. the land who liave been discharged from the army as. medically unfit. I have already described the system under which men whose lJnbs have been amputated are given a free choice ;>f at new jjrofession. There are now schools all ""over France for the l-e-edu-jation of the maimed, lt has been found that quite a large majority of nen desire to return to their old trades, and mechanical surgery has been brought to such a state of perfection 'hat there are hundreds of men already it work all over France.

Agricultural laborers form .60 per cent, of the total number of maimed men m France. Special attention is therefore being paid to them," and, thanks to the schools established at Ondes, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Grignon. and other places, astonishing results have been achieved. Many men with artificial limbs are working hard m the fields, just as they, used to do m normal times.

M. Justin Godart, tho Under-Secre-tary who has charge of sanitary arrangements, has now established a plan whereby men who are.. unable, by reason of their infirmities, to work on the land, can still be utilised for rural employment. In tho schools m the towns mentioned, the men are first fitted with special .artificial limbs, while others who have lost the use of their joints undergo a special course of treatment to fit them .for rural employment. In a school neatr Troyes there are twenty workshops, where hundreds of men, some of them peasants and some townsmen, are learn.'ng, or relearninoagricultural pursuits. v ° In the blacksmiths, locksmiths, basket- working, barrel-making, saddle making, chair making, boot making, and other kindred rural trades, the heroes of France are fast settling down to a new life which will help to re-make uountry life. In this same hive of Industry there is a five-acre field where men are taught ploughing, and there is even a. hairdresser's shop where men with artificial arms practise F'n-aro's art on their fellows. °

There is also a village school where illiterate men are taught the rudiments of reading and writing. It is quite pathetic to see the numbers of men who take advantage of this night schoolto learn what ithey never had the op-, portunity of .doing m their youth. In the section devoted to "motocultuve" a very (thorough training is Driven. The .Government is experimenting with all kinds of motor ploughs, so that every man shall have a chance of helping to develop the agricultural industries of France. This branch of the school is only now .m its infancy. Teams of men haive been picked to learn every branch of the work; lectures are given, as well as practical instruction, and eyery four or five weeks the pupils are sufficiently advanced to become -instructors. They are then sent to other centres.

Enabling men to return to rural life —considered by many authorities to bo » one of the greatest of af ter-the-war • problems — fa now m France an accomplished fact. 1