WIVES AND CHILDREN.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 69, 21 March 1919, Page 5

WIVES AND CHILDREN.

VOLUNTEERS AND CONSCRIPTS. LAST POSITION REACHED. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Mr. D. Seymour, general secretary oi the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association, publishes a statement in reference to the application of the amended scale of allowances to soldiers' wives and children. There is. he says, a general impression that the demands of the Association have been met by the Government, but nothing of the kind has been done. and the Association intends"" to press for retrospective payments in full of allowances to children of those xvho volunteered in the early part of the war. The early volunteers, he says, went cheerfully, and did not begrudge unavoidable hardships, hut where it was possible to do something towards equitable treatment, the Government had contested every inch, and yielded only to pressure for a year. They had contended, in effect, that the country could not afford to treat the volunteer as generously as the conscript. Next, while allocating some £2.000.000 for gratuities, only some C 440,000 of this Could be spared "in lieu of retrospection." Tc satisfy the claims of justice this had been increased to £500,000, not to fulft* a moral obligation, but presumably te provide a better line of defence agamsffull satisfaction of the principle involved. The last position had beer reached, and the Association looked tc the public and the Press to support it i. its demands on behalf of the childrer of volunteers.