WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 January 1917, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

SPECIAL ALLOWANCES TO SOLDIERS. (I'rom Our Owit Correspondent.) Wellington, Jan. 16, The new regulations are on tho line? laid down by the Imperial Government for the granting of.special allowances to soldiers in the United Kingdom. Their effect, in conjunction with New Zealand rates of pay and separation allowance, is to place the New Zealand soldier in. a particularly favorable position. Probfbly he becomes the best-paid soldier In the present war, -though only a proportion of the men will be able to claim tho allowances indicated in the regulations.

It will be possible now for a soldier with a wife and two children to draw £'! 12s fid pet week, if he can show a military Service Board that his financial commitments entitle him to the full allowance of £2 per week. The total sum would include his military pay and the separation allowances provided for his wife and ehildre.ii. The maximum* amount payable to a British soldier similarly situated would be £3 4s fid ipci week.

The extent of the liability involved in the granting of these allowances cannot be gauged. Tf the war is prolonged, and particularly if the compulsory clauses of the Military Serrica Act are applied to members of the Second Division of the Expeditionary Force Reserve, thr allowances may represent a very large sum indeed. But it is expected that under present conditions .he full sum of £2 per week will not often be allpwed, since a smaller sum will meet the difficulties on which very many of the appeals under the "undue hardship" heading have been basetjj.