HOME SERVICE MEN

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 98, 18 January 1918, Page 4

HOME SERVICE MEN

QUESTION OF SEPARATION ALLOWANCE. Tho executive of the Second Division League, it is announced, has decided to renew its representations to the Minister of Defence regarding the payment of separation allowance to homo service soldiers. Tho league claims that it is unjust that home service men should be denied the benefit of the new scale of separation allowances. At present these men are paid allowances under the old scale, the increases being confined to the foreign service branch. The view taken by Defence Headquarters is that the payment of separation allowances on tho higher scalo to home service men would create grave anomalies. Many men would b<s much overpaid for tho duties they perform. The home service men are all volunteers, and there is no reason, except personal inclination, why married, men should undertake home service at all. All tho available places can be filled, easily by First Division reservists who are unfit for active service. The home service man is not called upon to risk life and limb. The pay of a home service private is ss. a (lay, plus 4s. a day messing allowance if he lives out of camp. Tho man is clothed by the Defence Department, two uniforms with underclothing being allowed per annum. Then his wife gets Is. a< day, with 9d. a day for each child. Thus a married home service private with one' child gets £3 los. a week, plus clothing. It has to bo remembered that homo service privates are performing unskilled work. The skilled work, clerical or otherwise, nearly always 'carries with it commissioned rank, and tho pay is then higher. A home service sergeant with a wife and one child receives £4 9s. a week, plus clothing.

If the home service men were given separation allowance at the increased rates the total payment in the case of a married private with one cTuld would be £4 lis. a week, while a private with four children would draw £5 12s. a week, plus uniform. The married serj'fijintj with one child, would rcccivG £o 5s a week, and the sergeant witli four children would be paid £6 6s. a week, with uniform in each case. These pavments would he made to men who are not separated from their families, and who (for no fatilt of their own) are not facing the risks of war.