REPATRIATION.

Waipa Post, Volume XVIII, Issue 1009, 21 October 1920, Page 6

REPATRIATION.

SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS, A progress return issued by the Repatriation Department states that at the end of last month there were 78,350 names on he register of that department. Since its inception the department had placed 20,018 discharged soldiers in suitable employment and the number on the "employmnt wanted" register at that .time was only 186. Not one of these unemployed were drawing sustenance allowance, which was to say their names had not been entered in the wanted register for a week. The total amount paid out as unemployment sustenance was £s,2o3—an average expenditure of 1/3 per demobilized soldier. Out of a total of 5,089 men for whom vocational training had been arranged, 2,126 had finished their courses. An additional 1,145 students who were attending evening classes at Universities or who were studying by correspondence with recognised institutions had been assisted. Officers of the department were in touch with all the trainers and the reports showed excellent progress. The total expenditure in connection with vocational training was £200,667. Aftei'-care officers were doing good work by keeping in personal touch with numbers of seriously disabled men and assisting them in various ways. Up to date this branch had dealt with 748 tubercular men, 238 amputees and 245 otherwise seriously injured men. A steady decrease during the past few months was apparent in the number of applications for financial assistance. Four thousand three hundred " and seventy-five business loans had been approved involving an expenditure of £992,446. Furniture loans totalled 9,248 and 3,735 others had received financial assistance in other directions. The expenditure under all these headings t0ta11ed'£1,472,512. A total amount bf £274,002, had 'been received as repayments on loans. Grantors were, in the great majority of cases, meeting their obligations with loyalty and promptitude, and less than 5 per cent, of the 14,156 men who had received loans were in arrear with payments.