"UNION WAGES" AND SOLDIERS' PAY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 122, 9 February 1918, Page 6

"UNION WAGES" AND SOLDIERS' PAY

The Labour-Socialist candidate for Wellington North has not attempted to disguise his distaste for the energetic prosecution of the war to a successful end, and there is nothing surprising about his announcement that he places the repeal of the Military Service Act in the forefront of his political programme. But his suggestion/that the Government ought to depend for recruits upon tho "voluntary system, with union rates of wages,' is wortlr a moment's attention, since it obviously is intended to convey a suggestion that the soldiers are underpaid according to civilian standards. It is by means of catchcries of this kind that the campaign of vilifying the Government and prejudicing it in the eyes of the unthinking is helped forward. Wc would not attempt to assess in terms of money the service that the soldiers are rendering to New Zealand and the Empire- on the battlefields, but if the standard is to be "union rates of wages," then the soldiers are not being underpaid at all. The comparison is easily madei If we take 12s. a day as the average wage of the workers in New Zealand we shall be over-estimating rather than under-estimating. That wage is equivalent to £3 6s. a week, without making any allowance for broken time. As a matter of fact, the average wage, spread over the whole year, probably does not exceed £3 a week. Now the unmarried private, while serving in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, is paid £l 15s. a week plus free Wmrd, clothing and medical attendance. The cost to him in civilian life of these services would certainly not be less than £l ss. a week, so that his military -wage is equivalent to £3 a week. _ The married private with no children receives a separation allowance for his wife at the rate of 3s. a. day, making his total wage, on tho same basis, £4 Is. a week. The married private with two children receives £l 15s. a week pay, £l Is. a week allowance, for his wife, _ and 14s. a week allowance for his children, plus the benefits that we have assessed at £l ss. a week, so that his total wage is £4 15s. a week. We have not taken into account pension benefits and the assistance- given to many of the soldiers by the Financial Assistance Board. The New Zealand soldier, as a, matter of simple fact, is well paid according to civilian standards, and he would lose money in very many instances if he were to be paid the "union wages" that have been claimed for him bv the Labour-Socialist enndi-