SOLDIERS' FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 June 1919, Page 6

SOLDIERS' FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE.

NOT A WAR GRATUITY, SOME MISAPPREHENSIONS EXPLAINED. Wellington, June 24. A recent announcement, respecting the extension of the Soldiers' Financial Assistance Regulations has* apparently given room to a good deal of misapprehension. Numerous soldiers and their dependents have considered themselves justified in applying for the "bonus"; some have interpreted it as being in lieu of the war gratuity. As a matter of fact, the regulations have no relation whatever to .the retrospective married allowance or the war gratuity. In order to give legal form and authority to the new proposals extending the Soldiers' Financial Assistance Board's powers, it was'" necesasry to use the term "tonus" in the regulations and to technically define the Soldiers' Financial Assistance Board as "Military Service Board." But it subuld be made clear that the Military Service Boards as generally understood, have ceased their functions and have nothing jto do with soldiers' financial assistance, and also that the grants, which may be made by the Soldiers' Financial Assistance Board are not identical with the proposed war gratuity—which has not yet been fixed—nor the retrospective married allowance now in process of payment by the Officer in Charge of War Expenses, Wellington. • Applications for retrospective financial assistance should be sent only to the secretary, Soldiers' Financial Assistance Board, Panama Street, Wellington. Where a previous application has been made there is no need for another application form to be completed and the request should be made by letter only. The Board desires to emphasise its policy that only under very exceptional circumstances will cases be reopened in which a grant has been paid, and draws attention to the real object of the new regulations which is to admit applications from men who were serving abroad when the regulations were gazetted on the 16th of January, 1917, and. who, on their return find themselves faced with accumulated liabilities which they could not meet out of their military pay and other sources ■of income. The Board's extended powers no wenable it to consider these late applications, and to give confidence farmers have in the concern, the same assistance as it would have provided if the soldier or his representative had submitted an application when the financial assistance scheme was inaugurated.