PAY & ALLOWANCES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 274, 15 August 1919, Page 8

PAY & ALLOWANCES

THE RETROSPECTIVE PRINCIPLE RETURNED SOLDIERS' . CLAIMS LIST SENT TO CABINET The executive of the New' Zealand Beturned Soldiers' Association has sent the following kilter to tho Minister of Defence (Sir James Allen):— "Dear Sir,— "In compliance with our promise to submit those items in respect to which this association feels .justified in insisting upon the retrospective application of amended scnlcs, I. am instructed by my excoutivo to press for the immediate settlement of the following items:— (a) The retrospective application (in full) to ehiWren of the amended ficale of allowances which came into force on January 1,1918. N.B.—lt is understood by the •association that you are willing to date the payment of the wife's allowance, kick to the dale of the soldier's entering into camp. In this matter the association to urge these payments only in respect to those, who finally left on service overseas. (b) Tire retrospective application of t the amended scale of allowances for widowed mothers and dependants at present in force. (c) The payment of one shilling par day unpaid during the first two years of the war for the probationary period of one mouth after entering camp. "While I am instructed (following your request) to press these three insistent claims as matters of urgency, my executive directs me to do so without prejudice to the following matters in respect to which we affirm that the retrospective principle is equally sound, but upon which in the meanwhile action has been suspended pending further consideration: —Officers' pay, soldiers' financial assistance, out-patients' ration allowance, and the retrospective application of amendments in tho scale of pay and allowances to members of the Motor Patrol and to Now Zealanders who enlisted in other units than the N.Z.B.V.

"You will appreciate tho fact that not being in possession of a schedule embracing all tho amendments during tho course of tho war to scales pi pay and allowances, etc., my executive is able to refer only to those amended scales of which it is cognisant. If you would kindly make such a statement available it would be greatly appreciated by the association. "I havo been definitely instructed not to press for retrospection in respect of the nmfti allowance or to the amended scalo of fiancees' passage money. . "We base our claim for retrospection on simple justice for those who obeyed the country's first call, arid neither waited to dictate their terms nor state their price. The fact that these men thought their duty to tho State in our hour of need greater than their duty to stay a.t home with their wives and children should not be held against them as a penalty, and favour should not thus be shown to thoir fortunate brothers who waited until the Government passed their more beneficent legislation. "Wo are told by you, sir, that it is only fair to assume that married men with families, vAw volunteered in the early stages of tho war. woto in a position to make provision for their dependants. Wliat evidenco is there for assuming that is the cas?? We do not Iwlieye tjiat tho number of those who went in tho early reinforcements in this happy position would be greater than those who went in the closing stages; yet provision was made for tho latter irrespective of their financial position. It is fair to assume that thoso who went first gave greater and longer services and Buffered proportionately more hardships than the later lots. Is it a sound principle of justice that the greater tho service the less the reward? Is tlie burden of war, already disproportionately heavy on the soldier who fought, to be intensified on those who obeyed, tho first call? "We, therefore, claim that every principle of honour and right demand that a rich and prosperous country treat the soldiers who first stocd by her with the same justice as those who followed. "Land values alone aro said to have risen some 20 per cent, on account of our winning the war, an 'amount probably sufficient to pay'the whole war cost. Aro officers and men, by whose sacrifices alone such unearned increment was created, not to receive as much for their hardships of 1915 as th-j latter part of 1918? Aro those who performed tho impossible on Gallipc/H, and who fell in hundreds at Quinn's and Courtenay's Posts, or up the slopes of Clianuk Bflir, those who carried MesBincs, who held the lino round Ypres through that terrible 1916-17 winter, and fetti before the wive in the slaughter of Passchendaele, are they not aS'worthy of the country's monetary gratitude as those who marched with us to (ho Khine? "We claim, sir, that these are honourable and just debts incurred by a rich and prosperous country toward'the dependants of thoso who, by their valour and Buffering, have saved her the humiliation and ruination of defeat, and should be at once honoured. "I beg to remain, sir, etc., (Signed) "D. Seymour, General Secretary."'