The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 1918 "HOME SERVICE" ANOMALIES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 399, 9 August 1918, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 1918 "HOME SERVICE" ANOMALIES.

"We nothing extenuate, nor set down auaht in malice."

One of the departments in which the Defence Expenditure Commission clearly indicated the possibility of substantial economies being effected without in any way impairing the efficiency of the work is that which comes under the heading qf '' Home Service," Under this heading come all those, officers and men, who are employed under the Department iH the pertormance of duties in the Dominion. The Commissioners remark that most '' regular " soldiers seem to think that all men doing military service, whether directly or indirectly, should wear uniform, and in their minds the terms " military " an:l "millinery" become closely associated. They have the idea that better discipline, and therefore more efficient service, are thereby secured. The Commissioners, however, harbour no such delusion. There is, they say, grave doubt about service rendered in uniform being more efficient : but none whatever about it being more costly. They support this contention with strong and seemingly unauwserable argument, based on inrefufntable evidence. There are many men doing purely clerical work in uniform in the Department of Defence drawing as soldiers infinitely more than they would be paid as civilians. In the course of their investigations the Commissioners discovered what they describe as most curious instances of men who either volunteered or were called up for military service and, on being declared unfit for active service, went into uniform and received more than they were get'ing for better and more valuable work in their civil employment. The waste of money involved In the unnecessary equipment and irrational remuneration of home service men is even more marked In the higher professional branches, where, for instance, " home service' dentists, immune from the and privations of active service, are not only garbed in expensive uniforms, nut have their "cushy" jobs made still more comfortable by the payment of a substantial allowance for pro-

fe-.sionai service: iu addition to the nay and allowance to which they are entitled by reason of their rank. Tt is not surprising that the Commissioners have taken -.trong exception to this glaring and inequitable anomaly. Sir Robert Anderson, a soldier of high rank and wide experience, is evidently of opinion that the officer whose most arduous duty is to stop a tooth, is certainly not entitled to anv more favoured treatment in the matter of pay and allowances, simply because he happens to be a dentist, than his brother officer who, perchance being a lawyer or au architect, must "carry on" at the front, prepared, if needs be, to stop a bullet. Beyond all question, these home service anomalies afford scope for the exercise of prompt and drastic economies.