LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3137, 16 July 1917, Page 6

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DISRATED NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Sir,—l wish to bring under your notice what appears to be an injustice and an anomaly in our military service. When a man is granted a commission and leaves tho Dominion as a lieutenant, lie does not afterwards lose either rank or pay, no matter how inefficient he may prove—temporarily—to be. On the oluer hand a n.c.o. who lias gained his sergeant's stripes by hard work in camp, does automatically, and through no fault of his own, lose both rank and pay. When ho arrives iu England .he loses one stripe and a drilling a day. In France, on leaving for the front, ho is relieved of the other two stripes and another shilling—it may be one and sixpence—a day. There does not appear to be any [ roper system of promotion or reinstatement for. these men, some of whom have passed for a commission though they have not received it. This military injustice will become moro glaring when the Second Division is called up, for the wife and family of such a man will lose at least fourteen shillings a week from his pay, and, it is supposed, will suffer a consequent reduction in pension if lie is disabled or killed in battle.—l am, etc., A.E.M. July 11, 1917.