MILITARY SERVICE BILL.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 April 1916, Page 3

MILITARY SERVICE BILL.

THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPULSION. PENSIONS ASD PAY, (From Our Own Correspondent.)' Wellington, April 7. The approach of the Parliamentary session, and the well founded report's that a Military Service Bill embodying the principle of compulsion will be placed before members, have given rise to a general discussion regarding the conditions of enlistment in the Expeditionary Forces. Some of the critics of the Defence Department's arrangements are showing a. certain amount of misapprehension of the situation. It is being commonly said, for example, that uncertainty regarding the pensions is the great obstacle to obtaining the required number of recruits. But is it not a fact that the pension? scheme, as far as it affects dependents, is not of much interest to the single men, to whom the present appeals are specially addressed ? More than (!o,oflo single men of military age, at a conservative estimate, have not yet volunteered for service, and a very large proportion of them must be free of home responsibilities. The pensions question is -a matter of very intimate concern to some men, married and single, but its effect upon recruiting almost certainly is being exaggerated.

Then there is the question of pay. Some people speak of the private's iis'a day as though it were an absurdly low wage, and the suggestion is made that the soldier should receive at least as much ns the laborer, that is, 8s or fls it day. But as a matter of fact the comparison is in favor of the soldier. The private gets his .is a day for seven days in the week and 52 weeks in the year, with board, lodging, and clothing added. If the value of the board, lodging, and clothing is reckoned at only £1 a Week, (he total wage is £2 15s a week, or .€143 a year. The laborer who is paid !)s a day in civilian life receives £2 i)s lid a week of 5 1 /; days. He has to pay for board, lodging and clothing, and he is not at all likely to be employed continuously throughout the year. If he works 50 weeks in the year his total earnings are £121! 15s. _ Probably nobody would contend that tire soldier at the front does not earn more than he receives, but judged on civil standards the pay is better than it is often suggested to be.

The ease even of the married man is not always represented quite fairly. If a man with a wife and two children to support enlists and proceeds to the front as a private, he can leave his family an allotment of 4s a day from his pay. That will give him 7s a week for himself, an ample allowance of pocket money under service conditions. There an? ways of spending money at the front, but the returned soldiers make it clear enough that no man has any real need of more than a few shillings to buy an occasional luxury. The wife will then have 2Ss a week, plus 14s a week separation allowance (Is a day for herself and Gd for each of the children), a total of £2 2s a week for every week in the year. The nver.ig., working man's wife, and a large proportion of the middle-class wives, are keeping house on less than that at the present time, after allowance has been made for the husband's clothing and personal expenditure. Here again it would not he contended that the military pay is generous, but at least it is adequate according to the standard of civilian life. There are husbands, it is true, who allow their wives no more than half of their military pay, or even less, hut they are not entitled to blame the Government for their own meanness.