OUR SOLDIERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 December 1918, Page 5

OUR SOLDIERS.

GOVERNMENT DOES ITS DUTY

SPECIAL GRANTS AND CONCESSIONS. OVER i £2,000,000 INVOLVED. By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent. Wellington, Last Night. The Minister of Defence to-day made an important statement in the Houai regarding the special grants and concessions to be made to the soldiers. He outlined the retrospective increase of officers'.pay, outfit allowances, and separation allowances, provision for education and grants for gratuities. . The total amount of money involved is over £2,000,000. He spoke in some detail of the arrangements made for the education and training of the soldiers during the demobilisation period in England, on the transports, and in New Zealand. He intended to set aside for this purpose a sum of £50,000, and if the amount was not large enough it would be increased. OFFICERS' OUTFIT ALLOWANCE. Members would recollect that during the last four years there had bean complaints on various occasions that the | sum allowed for an officer's outfit was not large enough. The original ailovvance had been £2O, and this was increased subsequently to £25. He proposed, to remove all possible cause for complaint by asking that the outfit allowance should be made up to £4O in all cases'. If an officer was no more, the amount would be paid to his widow This arrangement would cost £70,000. Then came the question of retrospective separation allowances. He had stated previously that the cost of paying these allowances retrospectively would ,be £615,000. , EXTRA ALLOWANCES FOR WIVES OF VOLUNTEERS. The returned soldiers had suggested that something should be taken from the sum provided for gratuities in order to cover the retrospective allowances, and he had promised to consider that suggestion. He had decided to' take nothing from the gratuities, but to set aside a sum of £44,000 to make a provision in lieu of gratuities. (Applause.) These extra allowances would be made to the wives of married men who voluntarily enlisted, and who served in the period up to December 31, 1917, wlyn the rate of separation allowance was increased The allowance would be paid to the wife or to the guardian of motherless children. INCREASED PAY OF OFFICERS.

From time to time the question bf officers' pay had been discussed. It had been represented that the New Zealand officers had been underpaid right from the start. He proposed from April 1 last to bring up the Expeditionary Force rata of pay to the permanent staff rate, 'that would cost about £172,000. It wou!:l be necessary also to bring the pay of the nursing; service into something 'like line with the nursing service of Australia, and that would cost £OO,OOO, making £232,000 for the officers and nurses, A DOLE TO LONG SERVICE MEN. The war gratuity would be one week's pay for each eighteen weeks' service in the case of married men, and one week's pay for each thirteen weeks' servke in the case of married men. That bonus was going to cost £1,265,000. The items he had mentioned, making a total of over £2,000,000, were in addiction to the £50,000 set aside for repatriation, and the unlimited amount that was available for financial assistance to soldiers who, after discharge, were not able immediately to find work. DISCHARGED MEN. Every soldier, on discharge, would get, four weeks' leave on full pay. and .1 railway pass for three weeks. The Government wanted the men to get back into civilian life quickly, and it was making up for the short leave by the gratuity system. The men would be assisted until they found work. They would bo required to do something. Work would be found for them, and then they and their wives and children would be kept going until they found a place in civilian life again. ANTICIPATING COMPLAINTS. He continued: "An honest attempt has been made to clear up all grievances—old ones and new ones. I have no doubt there will still be complaints, but I hope members will take those complaints for what they are worth. We are providing a very large sum of money for the men who have done so much." (Applause.) In answer to a question, the Minister said that New Zealand doctors who had been transferred to the Imperial Fcrces would be entitled to the British gratuity. He would be prepared in such cases to make up the gratuity to tile New Zea land level.