THE PAY OF HOME SERVICE MEN

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 1, 26 September 1917, Page 6

THE PAY OF HOME SERVICE MEN

Sir,—Will you kindly allow mo space in your valued columns to, strike a blow for the hardest worked and most poorly paid in the Trentham Camp, if not in the .Now Zealand Army. I refer to the New Zealand Medical Corps (homo service branch), and being a discharged soldier I can now do this in perfect safety. Now, sir, I am going to make some disclosures regarding the pay and huurs of (ho above-mentioned corps. Hist let mo tell you, sir, that nome service men throughout the camp practically Ml receive 2s. per diem duty pay, up to and including the rank of sergeant; ;and most of the clerks are sergeants or corporals, and in the Medical &orps too, certain branches, i.e., clerks, cooks, sanitary men, and storemen, are also droving what was intended to be the home service man's war bonus. Dental mechanics receive 10s. Gd. per oay. Bat here, sir, is the anomaly. The hardest worked section in the Medical Corps, i e., hospital orderlies and dressers, receive 310 duty pay, and they ™>rk 12 hours a day, which, for medically unfit men, vou will admit is rather lons hours ino'ther little thing which takes some explaining is this: Privates in the atorementioned privileged receive a= much pay as a sergeant of long seivice, oven though they be only a tarjw* in camp. Why, sir, should a sergeantclerk meive 2s. a day more than a sergeant in the hospital, upon wh omtl e lives of patients often depends? &U,, « his not a matter that; requires he urgent attention of the Charge de Aitaires the Hon. the Minister o Defence? I ihink as a discharged soldwr,, .1 am S'wUhin mv rights in making public So foregoing faots.-I am, etc., DISCHARGED SOLDIER.