CHECKING THE “DRIFTERS"

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 842, 10 December 1929, Page 8

CHECKING THE “DRIFTERS"

SOLDIERS’ REHABILITATION COMMISSION ECONOMIC PENSIONS SYSTEM From Our Resident Reporter WELLINGTON. Monday, The need for preventing a;,, abled men from becoming social “drifters” was urged before the Soldiers' Rehabilitation Commission, which today heard statements prepared by the Wellington Returned Soldiers* Association and the South African Veterans' Association. The latter submitted elaborate suggestions for farming on block land in Nelson and also urged the giving of greater prefer, ence to war veterans in Govern, ment employment. Colonel G. T. Hall, president of th* Wellington Returned Soldiers’ Association, described the economic-pen. sions system as being wrong in priaciple, and said it gave facilities for men to become “hangers on," instead of useful members of society, a post tion that 95 per cent, were opposed ta, They were unable, however, owing to their physical disabilities, to obtai* such employment as their strength would permit. The most important question in his opinion was the abs* lute necessity to devise means to gift occupation to a very large number of men who had lost their will power owing to their physical disabilities, and who were content to drift. Steps should be taken, he thought, to set up an organisation in a centre such as Wellington, the object of which would be to rehabilitate those men by vocational training which, ig his opinion, was closed down toe early. The establishment of farm settle merits was suggested by Major P. ds B. Brandon, president of the Welling, ton branch of the South African Wav Veterans’ Association. If a settlement were established in the Nelson dis. trlct, he said, the men could be pm; to occupations embracing farming, bees, pigs, poultry, rabbits, tobacco, fruit and vegetable growing and, on u larger scale, sheep and dairy cattle. That greater preference should bo given to ex-service men. more particularly to South African War veterans, in Government positions, such &> orderlies, liftmen, cleaners and messen gers, was the opinion expressed by Mr. J. I. Goldsmith, honorary secretary of the South African War Veteramf Association.