PAYMENT FOR P.O.W.’S

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25769, 2 April 1949, Page 8

PAYMENT FOR P.O.W.’S

Sir, —I am engaged to a returned soldier and we want to marry soon, but through financial circumstances which are no fault of our own, we are unable to do so. He was a prisoner of war for four years in Germany and was promised by the Government so much a day, I think 3s 6d, for the entire period of captivity, bo far this promise has not been kept. Surely all our boys deserve better treatment than this. What has happened to all the thousands of patriotic funds; the mothers and relations of these boys paid for this. It is the same old story as before: promise them the moon to get them to serve their country and for what? Bfoken limbs, hearts, and promises. What is the Returned Services’ for? Surely it is time someone made a move and did something worthwhile for a change.—Yours, etc., FIANCEE OF ONE OF MANY HEROES. March 23, 1949. [When this letter was referred to him the Minister of Defence (Mr F. Jones), said: “There is no record of any promise to pay a sustenance allowance in the circumstances mentioned. No such provision exists in the Geneva Convention (which governs the treatment of prisoners of war) or in any other official order or regulation issued or made during the recent war or the previous world-war. On the other hand, provision exists for the deduction from the accumulated service pay of prisoners of war of any advances of pay made to them by the detaining power. In this connexion,* the New Zealand Government decided not to debit any part of these advances against the soldiers’ pay accounts; consequently, the interned servicemen were allowed to retain the advances made by their captors, thereby securing extra remuneration equivalent to a bonus. Your correspondent’s references to the disposal of patriotic funds do not call for any comment on my part, as these funds are the concern of the New Zealand National Patriotic Fund Board.”]