LODGE SICK PAY FOR SOLDIERS

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23448, 1 October 1941, Page 4

LODGE SICK PAY FOR SOLDIERS

SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS IN FORCE Sick pay from a Christchurch lodge can go a long way, in terms of disIn the case of one Christchurch soldier, who continued belonging to a friendly society after he began to wear the uniform of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, his sick pay dated from a clash in April with a German soldier in Greece. The New Zealander was wounded, and from the time that certificated evidence of his injury came to his lodge in far-away Christchurch, sick pay began, and Is continuing. the money being paid to the man’s wife. Enlistments in the armed forces have caused a problem, which has been met in several ways in several lodges. The lodge to which the- man wounded in Greece belonged sets out in its rules that the man who joins the armed forces has two alternatives (while all the time retaining his lodge membership, to be picked up after his return). He can pay the sick pay and funeral benefits fees and receive sick pay when he is sick or injured, whereever he is, or he can pay no fees and receive no sick pay. There is a clearing-house agreement by which payments from New Zealand lodges can be made In England; but for troops in the Middle East the usual practice is to hold the money in New Zealand, so that it is available when it is most needed—when .the man returns. In any case, a man serving in the forces keeps his member-, ship for the war and 12 months after* wards. ■