Soldiers’ Pay

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30610, 28 November 1964, Page 14

Soldiers’ Pay

Sir, —Five applications in two weeks for enlistment in the Regular Force—the worst results in nine months, according to an Army spokesman. Is it any wonder, when recent Army pay increases range from £l4O for senior officers to £5 for corporals and nothing for the private soldier? A real morale-booster. Actions speak louder than words. If the Minister of Defence really does want men for the Regular Army then it is the Indians* pay that needs adjustment, not the chiefs’. As a start, perhaps, the Minister might care to emulate the interim wage rise granted to the State services, by granting an immediate interim increase to private soldiers. He could justify this action by anticipating the recommendations slowly being reached by the committee investigating armed services rates of pay. Continued procrastination over soldiers’ pay rates can have only one result —a continuing decline in recruiting figures

and an increase in the discharge rate.—Yours, etc., BLUEBELL. November 5, 1964. [The Minister of Defence (Mr Eyre) says: “The increase referred to by the correspondent is the special one granted to the armed services for restoration of margins above the lower ranks. It followed a similar increase granted to other State servants. The need to restore margins had become necessary because of the flattening out of the pay scales as a result of the various limited pay increases granted to the armed services since the last major pay review in 1956. The need to increase the rates of pay at the lower rates is well recognised and this is an important factor in the current pay review being undertaken by the armed services.”]