TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays FRIDAY. 2nd APRIL, 1943 REPATRIATION PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5600, 2 April 1943, Page 2

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays FRIDAY. 2nd APRIL, 1943 REPATRIATION PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

THE EXPERIENCES of a Te Awamutu returned soldier who desired to establish himself as a responsible settler on the land are not a-good indication of what will arise when the problems of repatriation have to.be faced in earnest. His application is rejected on'the two main grounds that his pre-enlistment occupation- was not farming and that he has not had a lengthy practical experience on the land. These, surely, are not tenable grounds on which to cast aside, a bonafide application, and it would be.deserving indeed to learn more about the future prospect of the applicants and the intended policy of the administration. The Government has more'than once acclaimed its desire to use fully the resources of the State for the reestablishment of the returning soldiers; public sentiment leans strongly in support of any well ordered planning in that direction. What, then, is the debarring factor. It cannot be that because a soldier enlisted from this or that occupation he cannot be encouraged to strike out in directions which better accord with his desires or lead to an improvement in his ultimate position. In this particular instance, too, lack of experience or association with farm life is not what the Board alleges it to be. The indicators all suggest that there has been a miscarriage of intent and, very certainly, if this is a forecast of the repatriation tendency, a serious recasting is necessary. The men who have served their country are justly entitled to expect much more than this. Strangely there is little evidence as yet of any attempt to promote land settlement on the basis of independent land owning and responsible farming; recent announcements have turned more to the training of men for the skilled industries and. with that, has come the prospect of mass production enterprises more or less directly as State undertakings. Is that the direction the people of this Dominion want to follow? Are we to plan along lines which offer the repatriated soldier a place in Stat? directed enterprises? It is true that under the stress of war conditions austerity and discipline have been imposed by compulsion and much that is free :r> life habits has had to be abandoned. From the first day of war one of cur problems has been how to produce in a free society the discipline, the sacrifices, and the austerity which the totalitarian State can enforce by compulsion. But the return to freedom is the goal we fight for and it will undoubtedly be the first task when peace comes. Granted that Governments must guide the way and enter the economic sphere perhaps more than in the pre-war days, it does not fellow that State directed ai.controlled enterprise is the proper key to unlock the door of after-war opportunity. Rather our soldiers may', expect to find a place in a free society, engaging as free men and seeking only from the State the right to find economic independence. That fact should not be overshadowed in to-day’s repatriation planning, and never again should it be said that because" of his pre-enlistment occupation the soldier has no claim or right as a citizen to want to better his positionIn yet another sphere of Government activity should there be more consideration given to the after war prospect. The Government has imposed what it styles the Occupational Reinstatement Regulation, the effect of which is that the employer must be ready to find either six months of work or

wages payment for the soldier on his release. Theoretically an easy way of meeting the first shock of re-absorb-ing men into industry and civil life, but actuallj’ a theory which strikes directly to the problem of supply. If the Government would see this part of its programme fulfilled then it will require to release the import controls in advance of the peace, make available the materials, and so have the means at hand for the factories to start working again for the employment of the men on their release from Army service.