Concessions to Soldiers

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22850, 25 October 1939, Page 8

Concessions to Soldiers

In two respects it appears that men in the military camps are being treated with less consideration than they deserve. Travelling on the special leave trains, .they are required to pay “ half the ordinary fares,” as the Officer Commanding the Southern Military District said last week. The cost of running these trains is, of course, not negligible; but the decision to recover it from the soldiers’ pay is a mean one. They have, as a whole, exchanged better pay for worse, easier conditions for harder ones, and security for ultimate danger, and they have done so in answer to the Government’s appeal, Appreciation of their response is strangely signified by making them buy rail tickets when they go on. week-end leave. The concession of half the ordinary fare is hot generous; it is even smaller than it looks. But if the fare were reduced to Is or to 6d, it would still be too much by that amount. The Government’s error is in calculating a concession where it can, and should, be liberal. War expenditure offers ample scope for calculation of the hardest sort. It is a wretched mistake to extend it to the privileges that the State can allow soldiers, gratefully and freely. Bargaining over them is shabby. The Government, it must be assumed, will not think a second time about the question without seeing that. It might also very well reconsider the policy under which the camp canteens are conducted. The Director of the Internal Marketing Division, Mr F. R. Picot, in a footnote to. a letter printed a day or two ago, explained that the canteens are selling “ at ordinary retail prices.” Trading on a cash basis and with the advantage of bulk purchase, they should be able to give the men better terms than that and still reserve a small margin of profit in “ the interests of “ regimental units.” It is important to establish funds for the recreation and comfort of the men in training. It cannot be agreed that they should be built up by taking unnecessarily large profits from the soldier-customer at the canteen counter.