CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 135, 5 December 1944, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE

PAY FOR SICK NURSES

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—l agree with "Trained Nurse" that more should be done for nurses contracting pulmonary tuberculosis, as I feel sure that in most cases the infection is contracted during the course of duty.

Allow me to correct "Trained Nurse" by saying that nurses suffering from erythema nodosure now receive full salary for four weeks, halfpay whilst a patient in hospital, and £1 per week (from which is deducted superannuation and social security) when on leave prior to recommencing [duty, no board allowance being received during this period, which may be from three to six months. During this time the nurse is asked to live' on £3 12s 4d from the hospital and £4 from social security, a total of £7 12s |4d a month, i.e., £1 18s Id a week; 30s or more of this would be required for board, leaving the nurse 8s Id a week with which to clothe herself and buy extras such as fruit, etc., and pay all travelling expenses which may be involved. I feel sure that all interested and thinking citizens will agree that to ask any person to live on the above sum, considering the cost of living nowadays and as a result of infection contracted innocently during the course of oner duties, calls for investigation and correction. As a nurse, I do not write in a spirit of discontent or grumbling, but it is time j that sick nurses had a fair deal—l am, etc., ' TRAINEE. !

"WHAT IS THE POLICY?" i Sir-There are factors in relation to the detention of defaulters that are not considered in your editorial of December 1, and about which there is mu^h. misconception. . The petitions sought to bring New Zealand law into line with the law in England. There, as here, the law provides that if a man has a genuine belief that it is wrong to engage in war he shall be exempted from military service. In England there are local tribunals set up for the sole purpose of hearing claims of conscietious objectors. Here appeal boards hear these claims. ■ I

In England, if an objector is dissatisfied with the decision of the local tribunal, he has a light of appeal to an appellate tribunal. If that fails, and he'still feels that he cannot serve (as a genuine conscientious objector must feel) and he is prosecuted, he has the right to a fresh hearing of his conscience appeal before the appellate tribunal every time he is sentenced to imprisonment for three months or more. Moreover, men serving as combatants in the armed forces, whose views change so that they become conscientious objectors to further service, have the same right to be heard by the appellate tribunal, and in a number of instances such appeals have been allowed and the men have, been discharged from the Army or other service. There have been cases where a man has been sentenced fiv.e or six times, each time having his conscience appeal reheard and only on the fifth or sixth hearing has it been allowed and exemption granted. In New Zealand there is no right of appeal even in the first instance.

Elementary principles of justice recognise that courts may make mistakes, and in the ordinary courts there is ample provision for appeal even where the penalty may be trivial. A right of appeal to an appellate tribunal would help to remove the possibility of grave injustice. While official figures are not available to enable comparison of the proportion of exemptions granted by appeal boards in different districts, it is known that some boards have granted a much higher proportion than others. An appellate tribunal would help to even out the discrepancies due to geography. In England, again, the right of appeal has been exercised in more than 15,000 cases. And in more than 50 per cent, of .these the decision of the local tribunal has been altered. It is probably for some such reason as this that there are fewer than 100 "defaulters" in prison in Britain, out of 60,000 claiming exemption on conscience grounds. There are no detention camps there. Here more than 600 are detained "for the duration of the war." This indeterminate sentence is another discrepancy between British and New Zealand procedure. In England the maximum sentence is two years and most of the men in prison are there for much shorter terms. —I am, etc..

A. C. BARRINGTON., [This letter has been abridged. The submission of "The Post" in the subleader mentioned was briefly that of the N.Z.R.S.A. that persons detained for refusal to serve should not be released before .men who accept the duty of service, and that the Government should declare its policy on this issue. —Ed.] On the same question "Deeper Thought"' writes: '"I know some conscientious objectors have entered mental hospital for treatment and some men who have merely gone into camp in New Zealand and have been unable to carry on, which proves we are not all made to a pattern. Why can't people like 'Fair Play' realise that these men in detention camps would not have made good soldiers and that prolonged detention will only tend to cause mental and moral deterioration and give us bitter extremists and poor citizens?" "Wife of a Prisoner of War" writes: "If the petitioners gave more thought to our prisoners of war and fighting men they would be doing a better job of work. Some of our prisoners of war have been interned for four years, without the luxuries that these defaulters enjoy, and whose stay in these prison camps is also for an indefinite time. Keep the conscientious objector in camp until some time after the war."

Restoration of the South African War Memorial in Napier is to be undertaken shortly by the Napier 80-rough Council, states the "Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune." It has remained for nearly 14 years much as the earthquake of 1931 has left At— the main pillar askew and the figure of the soldier with reversed arms in the council's yards—and in the meantime traffic developments have caused it to become somewhat of a menace. In consultation with - the South African War Veterans' Association, the council has decided to move the memorial to the Sound Shell end of the nearby garden plot opposite the Masonic Hotel, with changes in its design which will mean mainly that the height will be reduced. When the earthquake came in 1931, the lifesized marble figure surmounting the memorial was displaced and thrown to the ground, the head being separated from the body in the fall. The decapitated .figure was removed to the council's yards awaiting developments, and a long while afterwards the missinct head was found amidst earthquake debris which had been used for a flood protection embankment.