A COMMON-SENSE AGREEMENT

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2734, 31 March 1916, Page 4

A COMMON-SENSE AGREEMENT

The Minister of Defence is to bo complimented on the arrangement ho has Been abie to make with the Commonwealth Government respecting payment of separation allowances to wives of soldiers living away from the country in which their husbands enlisted. A married man, for instance, might enlist in Australia while his wife jvould prefer to live with her friends and relatives in New Zealand during her husband's absence at the war, and vice versa. But until the reciprocal arrangement now entered into was made, difficulties existed as to the payment of the separation allowance. Now the respective Governments have arrived at a mutual agreement to pay such allowances. It may seem a small enough thing in its way, and one which should be undertaken as a matter of course, but unfortunately what appears to be a commonsense thing to the average citizen is not always so in the eyes of Government officials—particularly military officials. Yet, if Governments only realised it, it is most often the small things.that count with the public and give rise to grievances and fault-finding to the prejudice of Ministers. Mil. Allen has taken a oommon-sense view of tho separation allowance question and is to be congratulated on having induced Senator Pearce to act with him.