FAMILY ALLOWANCE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 1, 9 January 1942, Page 5

FAMILY ALLOWANCE

CHILDREN IN ARMY STATUS

AGE MAKES NO DIFFERENCE

For purposes of conjugal and family army classification—but not for pay allowances —children are always children, no matter what their age. This was asserted by a senior officer j)f the Army Department after he had consulted a high authority in Wellington.

The point is most important because married men with a child or children over 16 years of age have #jeen wondering whether each child or children 'Should be counted for purposes of• their army classification in respect to ballots for military service. There has been a great deal of confusion on the point and it has been argued that children of 16 years or more must not be counted.

However, always bearing in mind that army allowances are; noit paid fn respect of children aged. 16 or over, it is now clear that all children count for classification, the official view being that a man who has reared a family and shouldered the financial burden involved has done his duty and is as much entitled toconsideration and precedence as the man with a family of younger children. The correctness of the officer's assertion is borne out by a clause in the National Service Emergency "Regulations, 1940, which sets, out that the term "child" is used irrespective of the age of the child.