NEED FOR EXPLANATION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2762, 4 May 1916, Page 6

NEED FOR EXPLANATION

" Sir,—Will you- kindly supply , a soldier with the correct translation or these two tangled paragraphs from official documents just issued: 1. "Married allowance is luereascd by sixpence a/day up to a maximum of -s. for each child 1 under sixteen years or soldier with four little ones reads his maximum allowance as 25.; another says the maximum of 2s: is added to the present allowance of Is., making it 35.; a leading lawyer, also a well-known teacher, who is an M.A., say the legal and eorreefc English of it is Bs. ■ 2 "Officers' performing- technical work who are requisitioned, such as selected telegraphists, otc,, to be allowed lialr public service pay arid military pay m addition." . . ' Tho interpretation of the English and its intention look quite easy, and any school girl would-do-it justice by saying it applies to all good telegraphists and technical officers who volunteer to light for us; but, alas, it has been found to their sorrow that all of such who have offered themselves, only half a dozen receive the emoluments set forth, becausc the rest light, whilst these few are selected to do technical work "at the front." One local firm, half of whose staff has volunteered, is paying out £1200 a year a> half-pay. Surely the Government will see that tlio example, which should have come from themselves, will be followed,. fully and frcclyi parsimoniously and -ambiguously. These aro things which seriously hamper us 111. our efforts to assist tlio recruiting movement. —I. am, etc., RETURNED SOLDIER, r(l) Tile words quoted are, to say tho lofist, ambiguous. The fact is that tho wifo of a married soldier receives a separation allowance of Is, per day, and G'l. per day for every child. Formerly a limit of four children was fixed as the maximum number in respect of which this allowance could be drawn, but the number has lately been increased to five, making the maximum separation allowance receivable 3s. fxl.- per day. (2.) Ordinary members of the Civil Service who enlist reccivc no civilian pay, but military pay only. From time to time, however, the authorities" have demanded from the Telegraph Scrvicp specified sinn 11 numbers of men, with special technical knowledge, telegraphists, telegraph clerks, wireless operators and others, for service of a special sort. The .Department has supplied these moil, selecting those with, the required know* ledge, doubtless from amongst a larcet number of volunteers. These "requisi-' tioned" men receive half of their publio seivico pay :n addition to tlio military pay bf their rank. In all 787 officers have gone from the service to enlist ill tho ordinary way, and 180 have been "requisitioned." As our correspondent points out, it is rather an anomaly that the men who fight should bo less well treated than those who do teclm ; <*il work in conmnrativo safetjj"