MARRIED MEN ENLISTING.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2594, 16 October 1915, Page 3

MARRIED MEN ENLISTING.

Sir, —In view of, tho fact that about February or March married men will be wanted if reinforcements are to be kept up, it is necessary. I think, that the position ought to be clearly and definitely set out so. that provision may be made. If I were to enlist and should go into camp to-day, the position would bo that my wife and two children would have to live on 28s. per week. At present there is equal to £4 coming into my homo weekly, and with every economy exercised there is little or nothing to spare. How, then, can I, even to serve my country, consign my family to poverty ?_ It is no use telling me that the Patriotic Society will assist them. I must know definitely how they are to be situated beforo I enlist. It seems to me that the fervour of the patriotic and also the Government's schemes is more or less misdirected. All provision up to the present is made for returned, invalided, or, the relatives of deceased soldiers. Are not an ablebodied soldier's relatives :of equal importance with those of the dead soldier, and if so why make better provision for the dead than the living? This question has got to be answered because no man who respects his homo is going to leave it subject to the social dangers of poverty, when he knows that the monoy is here in New Zealand, and is being made in handfuls daily bv the people whose property we go to defend. —I am, etc., NO. 1 MARRIED MAN.