PAY AND ALLOWANCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 March 1943, Page 2

PAY AND ALLOWANCES

DISCHARGED MEMBERS OF FORCES. IMPORTANT DECISION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. An important decision affecting discharged members of the forces was announced by the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, last night. He stated that the Government had been seriously concerned with the. financial difficulties faced by soldiers who, by force of circumstances quite beyond their control, were wholly or partly unemployable. Some of these men were not in receipt of Army pay and were not entitled to a full war pension. The Prime Minister explained that under the present policy an invalided member who requires hospital treatment was retained on military pay for a .period not exceeding three months. If it were found that his invalidity was of a prolonged nature, he was discharged from the forces and granted a privilege leave period of 28 days if he had served overseas or 14 days if he had served in New Zealand. There were other cases where the injuries or sicknesses suffered could not be directly attributed to war service, and these men were denied the advantages of the war pensions legislation. Mr Fraser said that for the duration of the war all members of the forces who had served in New Zealand or overseas, and were in-patients or outpatients of hospitals, would continue on full pay and allowances till (a) they had been discharged from the Army as fit to take up civil employment; or (b) granted discharge from the Army at their own request. The maximum weekly allowance (free of National and Social Security tax) would be as follows: Single man, £3 10s; married man and wife only, £4 10s; married man, wife and one child, £4 16s; married man, wife and two children, £5 2s; married man, wife and three children, £5 8s; married man, wife and four children, £5 14s; married man, wife and five children '(maximum rate), £6.