RETURNED SOLDIERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 148, 25 June 1931, Page 12

RETURNED SOLDIERS

REHABILITATION SCHEME DIFFICULTIES OF PROBLEM IDEA TO USE CANTEEN FUNDS. Representative ex-soldiers are inclined to reserve judgment upon the suggestion of the Government that the Canteen Funds Trust Board should advance the money required for launching the discharged soldiers’ civil reestablishment scheme. The board, it is understood, has considered the question, and has given its decision, but this has not been announced. Certainly it •controls the situation. Neither the Government nor soldiers’ organisations can interfere. It has been the policy of the board to conserve and, as far as possible, build up a fund against the day when all the war funds, held by such bodies as the patriotic societies, are exhausted. At present tho canteen fund amounts to slightly over £200,000. It ; has not been possible, however, for the I trustees tn add all the interest earned 'to the capital. They make an annual | grant, to the Trentham Scholarship i Fund, out of which children of de- ' ceased soldiers are helped in their education, and each year for several years 1 the trustees have voted sums to assist I in the relief of unemployed ex-soldiers, i for whom the Poppy Day collection , was instituted. This year so far the , trustees have voted £B5OO toward ’his object, and most of the money is exi pended in food and clothing, whrch is i issued by the ■various branches of the ' Reurned Soldiers’ Association. Qualified Support. I No representative ex-soldier supports the clamorous claim of one section of returned men that there should be a ; general distribution of the fund, a proceeding which would be of little in--1 dividual benefit, but possibly they might give substantial support under I present circumstances to the GovernJ ment’s scheme of using part of the : money for rehabilitation provided they were assured that overhead did not j absorb too large a portion of it. “I am very much afraid that this would be the case,” said a prominent officer. “It might sound like despair if I said that it is almost too late to start to train unfit and incapacitated men for some new vocation, but it has to be recognised that even if the men in most need of this help are given an occupation, the prospect of their obtaining regular employment or of selling the proceeds of their industry ui a fair profit is not bright at the presnt time. Of course, this depression will pass, but there is no reason for disputing the conclusion of tho Rehabilitation Commission, upon whoso report the Act of last year was passed, that “the sympathetic interest o the community in the returned soldier is tending to wane, and until it is again stimulated and organised, cannot be relied upon by him as tending to offset his economic and industrial short comings. ’ Penalty of Ignorance. “Those who think about this matter know, as the commission pointed out, that the country ’etpsed its Repatriation Department too soou. The authorities did not appreciate the fact that there were thousands of men. who would age prematurely and who required careful individual handling to give them a reasonable chance of holding their own in civil life. The drift among the older men is painfully obvious now. Among the younger men who went to the war almost as boys and had not yet qualified for a place in civil life, there is a feeling of bitterness and despair. It is almost too late to give half these men the chance they so richly deserve, but it will require the combined wisdom of all interested organisations to launch the scheme. It would be too futile for the Government to appoint four vocational officers as is proposed without a definite ob jective first being fixed. “Under ordinary circumstances I would promptly oppose tho use of canteen funds for tlie purpose, but what is one to say at this time when the State is so hard pressed? But there certainly will be opposition even if the trustees of tho fund are willing to make a vote, if the idea is to create some departmental organisation which is so liable to dissipate most of the money in overhead.”