LEAVE WITHOUT PAY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 100, 21 January 1918, Page 4

LEAVE WITHOUT PAY

TREATMENT FOR MAIN BODY' MEN. Adverse comment is being made upon the attitude of tho Defence ■' Department towards Main Body men who nave been brought back to New Zealand on special leave, granted them for domestic or business leasons, and who have been given leave without pay upon their arrival here. It is pointed out that these men are getting their first holiday after more than three years' service, that they havo dependants to support, and that they cannot earn money while they are ; n uniform. Tho docking of their pay during the few weeks they are to spend in New Zeuland before re-embarking for the front is a hardship.

A protest has been made by the Paten Patriotic Society in the case of Sergeant F. H. Masters, "a holder of the Military Medal.. Sergeant Masters has over three years' service to "b<s oredit, but when he returned to New Zealand on leave he was notified that his pay would cease while he was off duty. After tie cancellation of the proposed general furlough for Main Body men, men at the front who had urgent reasons for wishing to secure special leavo were invited to make application. Many did apply, and from them a few wero selected to form the first batch for New Zealand. The men were not given to understand at the time that they would be left without pay while in the Dominion. ■ llio "Returned Soldiers' Handbook, an official publication, provides that "all soldiers returned either invalided or on duty ... usually receivo liefore returning to duty or before discharge a concession frorn the Government of three weeks' privilege leave on full pav." The reason why returned Main Body men are getting privilege leavo witlic-ut pav is that they havo been ruled officially to be in the same ■position as men who got privilege leave from the training camps to attend to private business. No pay is allowed in those cases. ■