Serious Hardship Inflicted by Bad Slump in Trade A tribute to the employers of the country in their effort to find work for ex-officers was paid by Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice in an address at Stationers' Hall the other day.
Since he accepted the invitation to deliver that address, he said, the situation had undergone a material change. We were in the middle of a bad slump, and the question of the employment of any particular section of the community had become merged in the political and economic problem. The question of the employment of the ex-officer was, however, a special problem. He was quite conscious of what employers had done, especially in the City of London. In 1919, roughly, 300,000 ex-officers were demobilized. At the end of the year they were left with only 25,000 to place. Those figures spoke for themselves. It meant that by far the greater majority of the employers of the country had kept places open and taken back men who served with them before the war. By last July the 25,000 had sunk to 11,060. Té-day it had risen to 13,000, due to the slump. That figure was likely to remain constant for some time pecan although the remedial measur were still going on and men were still being placed, there was a flow of men from the Services, and he did not see any chance of the figure being reduced at present.
Provem ey THe DisaBeep.
The 13,000 involved were perhaps the most difficult to place. Naturally they were the residue—the men who found it most difficult to get a job and stayed on. The disabled, however, he would put first. Our attempts to resettle the disabled wore the Jeast happy of all the schemes, because the Government attempted to apply the old system, which had worked well enough for the old small Army, but was really not applicable to the National Army. A man was judged by the medical officers as, say, 30 per cent. or 50 per cent. bled: but the miner who had a touch of gas could not again go down a mine, and had to find a new trade for which he had not been trained. Another disabled man had Salonica ague, and had at uncertairi_times to leave his job and lie up. It was unfair to class such men in a rigid scale.
Another class was the old regular who had served in the ranks and who won his way to a high position. He was turned out at the
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