SERVICE GRATUITIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 April 1919, Page 5

SERVICE GRATUITIES.

MINISTER'S INTENTIONS. POINTS TO BE CONSIDERED. It has already been announced that the Defence Minister lias decided to reconsider the proposals he made to the House 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 letogth of service, and another payment to married men who had served when the separation allowances were not nearly so general as in the 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 no more could be given. It was an endeavor to meet the demand of the Returned Soldiers' Association 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 was 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 agreed to an increase in this amount from £440,000 to something more than half a million. The payments will be made from this fund about June.

The settlement of the amount to be paid by way of service gratuity has proved to be a very much more difficult matter. The JVTinister's proposal was to give single men one week's pay for every eighteen weeks of service, and to married men one week's pay for every thirteen weeks of srvice. There was no complaint from the soldiers 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 our own scale. IN OTHER DOMINIONS. It seems to be true that Canada is paying gratuities on a much higher scale than New Zealand proposed to pay, but for the purpose of making a fair comparison it is necessary to take into account all the other payments or other aids given to the returned soldiers in the two countries. The pay of the Canadian soldier was less than that of the New Zealand soldier, but in Canada the separation allowances were probably higher in the aggregate. They were much higher in respect of the wife, but much lower in respect of children. It is not clear how much, if any, financial assistance was given to spldiers in the Canadian Army in respect of liabilities while on service. It is not clear how much financial assistance is being given now to the returned men in Canada to establish them again in civil life. Possibly Canada is not giving to soldiers the sustenance rate while they are unemployed. The amount of the Canadian pension is generally lower than the New Zealand scale, and there is no country in the world which has a more liberal schedule of dependents who may be entitled to a pension in respect of any soldier killed or disabled. It may be that the New Zealand gratuity scale will have to be increased, but in making comparisons with Canada or any other country all the factors will have to be considered, and this the Government is trying to do. One of the demands that the Government may yet have to face is that for financial assistance to the men who went away before the scheme was inaugurated. Some of the solders who went away with the earlier drafts without financial assistance would undoubtedly have received it had they pone a year or two later, and they would have had a correspondingly larger amount to credit 011 their return. If a demand for retrospective financial assistance is made on behalf of these men it would be difficult for the Government to resist it.