SOLDIERS' GRATUITIES.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 April 1919, Page 7

SOLDIERS' GRATUITIES.

MAEEIED AND SINGLE MEN

SCALE NOT STET DETERMINED

It has already been announced that the Minister for Defence has decided to reconsider the proposals h 0 made prior to the rising of Parliament for the payment of gratuities to soldiers returning from service. The Minister proposed that there should be two gratuities—one a service gratuity payable only in respect of length of service, land another payment to married men who had served when the separation allowances were not nearly so general as in thel last year of the war.

The first, announcement was that in respect of this latter payment a sum of: £440,000 would be disbursed, and that ho more could be given. It was an endeavour to meet the demand of the Returned Soldiers' Assciation for retrospective allowances on the higher scale to these men, but it was recognised at the time that this sum of £440.000 might not be enough to give every married volunteer an allowance equal to that to which the Association considered he Avas entitled. Subsequent calculations showed that the amount would be considerably less than enough to give what the Association asked, and the Minister and the Government have from £440,000 to something more than agreed to an increase in this amount

half a million.| The payments will bo made from this fund about Juno. The settlement of tlio amount to be paid by way of service gratuity has proved to be a very much more difficult mattoi*. The Minister's proposal was to give to single men one week's t'liv for every eighteen weeks of service, and to married men one week's pay for every thirteen weeks of service. There was no complaint from the sold'ers at the time about the amount offered, because they had probably not expected anything at all. But since then announcements have been published as to the amounts being given in other Dominions, notably in Canada.. The Australian scheme is not yet settled. The Government is now waiting for information from Canada before going on with the New Zealand scale.