SEVERE CASTIGATION.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 2857, 31 January 1916, Page 4

SEVERE CASTIGATION.

WAR ON OUR "WAR OFFICE."

FEB FBEBS ASSOCIATION. Auckland, January 29. Mr Gunson, Mayor of Auckland, speaking at a meeting at the Soldier's Club at which a Returned Soldiers' Association was formed, said he believed the Government and particularly tho Defence Department had failed altogether to appreciate the fact that tho soldiers of tho New Zealand Forces had joined the army voluntarily. To get anything from the Defence Department was" like drawing blood from a stono, even in cases obviosuly genuine. . This w-as an unfair, and improper attitude to adopt. Dozens of eases had come under his notice in which it was palpably clear that the men's claims were just. Again and again lie had been astonished that they could not get the Department to rectify tho trouble. j Pay books produced by tho men showed that tho Department was in I their debt, yet the men could not get the money which was theirs by right, j Mr Gunson described tho allowance of 30s qr a suit of clothes of - that' value for men who had to resume civi- j lian clothes as parsimonious and absurd. These things had to be recti- | fied. I Unless tho Department saw that re- ■ dress was given they would agitate till the position was w r on for the soldiers. The Association was formed with the qbject generally to safeguard and further tho interests of returned soldiers.