PARLIAMENTARY MATTERS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11367, 13 October 1917, Page 4

PARLIAMENTARY MATTERS.

CARE OF RETURNED SOLDIERS.

MOST STURDILY INDEPENDENT.

AN EXTREMELY GOOD RECORD.

By Telegraph—Special to Manawatu Tunes. WELLINGTON, Last Night. The second reading of the Discharged Soldiers’ Settlement Amendment Bill was moved by Mr Massey to-night. H® explained that 54.1 returned men had been already settled. There were surprisingly few failures. There wer® 200.000 acres of land now available, and. the Government had advanced £141,775 to soldier settlers, and this Bill w 0*31(1 now increase the facilities for this purpose, besides securing other improvements in the scheme. Hon. A. L. Hordman in referring to the repatriation of soldiers, said that the most gratifying thing about th® 11.000 men who had returned was that the majority helped themselves and showed a desire to settle down quickly into useful work. There were forty, committees of voluntary workers assisting the Discharged Soldiers’ Information Department throughout New- Zealand.* Wounded men who could not follow their former occupations •wer# taught trades, but the difficulty was their anxiety to start earning immediately. Ho hoped to see arrangements made with employers to take on soldiers desiring to learn a trade, by paying them a wage below the minimum, the Government making up the difference. The Department ivas looking ahead to the end of the war and had made arrangements to create work for soldiers. The Railway and Public Works Departments would be under an obligation to take a certain number of men. Members generally approved of th® Bill, which was read a second xim® at a late hour.