SEPARATION ALLOWANCES.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 May 1916, Page 6

SEPARATION ALLOWANCES.

TO WIVES AND MOTHER?. ■A TYPICAL CASE. " (From Our Own Correspondent). Wellington, April 2S. One of the matters that will be discussed during the coming session of Parliament will be the separation allowance paid in connection with married members of the Expeditionary Force. Most members of Parliament have had their attention drawn to this subject in their own constituencies during the recess, and some of thein will voice a Jemand. for a more liberal treatment jf the wives and children of soldiers. The official reply to a demand for increased separation allowance at the present time is that the Government is not specially inviting married men to enlist, unless they can see their way to do so, and that the first call is to the single men. But that reply is scarcely reasonable in view of the fact that .lie Government is advertising widely the shortage of reeruitjj and making appeals for service and sacrifice that reach the married men as well as the single men. The oft-repeated statement that the present separation allowance is "utterly inadequate" is an exaggeration. The amount can lie made to suffice If the soldier retains foi himself no more than Is a day of his pay and if his wife exercises strict economy. A private can leave his wife and two children in possession of an income of £2 2s a week, and there are many .'amilies living on less than that, the year round, at the present- ,iine. Whether the allowance is worthy of New Zealand is another question. The rate means that in very many cases the soldier's wife must face difficulties that are new to her and must cut down her expenditure to a point in rather painful contrast with the circumstances of her neighbor whose husband has stayed at home.

A wife's view of the position was placed ueforc your correspondent the other day my a cheery little woman whose husband went away with the Main Body and has not yet returned. She has one child. Her husband has made an allocation of 4s a day in her favor, and she receives the separation allowance, Is a day for herself and 6d a day for the child. Her total weekly income, paid monthly, i s thus £1 ISs'fid. The husband hasibeconie a corporal, and so receives 6s a day instead of the original os, but out of the 2s a day retained by him he is trying to save a few pounds against the day of his discharge. The single men who arc serving with him are accumulating deferred pay. under the Defence department's rule, at the rate of 3s a day. "Before my husband enlisted we were gc-tting £4 per week," said this wife, "and we were living as comfortably as most people. When the war came my husband felt it nis duty to enlist, because hj? was a trained man. and off he went. Now I have a little less than £2 a week, out of which I try to send a few things to the soldier by post. I have to do without a good deal, naturally, and saying is out of the question, I don't complain about any sacrifice that has to be made for the country just, now, any more than my husband does, but when I look round and see how other people are living—peop'e who n,'vc net sent n man to the war—then I_ sometimes ferl a little sore. I think New Zealand could afford to provide something more than bare necessities 1 for the soldiers' wives. Would it be asking too much of the. Government to say that every soldier's family should V.aA't at ieast £3 a week? Mcmlwr# of Parl'amenl are doing rather better than that, I think, and I sometimes suspect that the soldier to the more useful autf -