INEQUALITY OF SACRIFICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24911, 9 May 1942, Page 8

INEQUALITY OF SACRIFICE

Sir, —With reference to the demand for an increase in the allowance paid to wives of soldiers, how does a child fare in cases where the person who takes the place of the mother is refused an allowance from the Government? Is that child to be further penalised because he has no mother and so has no one to share in any benefits? The soldier concerned has been 18 months on active service, with only his army pay and Is 6d a day to maintain a growing school boy and supply his own needs overseas. These men who so willingly go the “ second mile ” with the promise, not of overtime pay, but of sacrifice, are suffering and dying far from home, while our Government lacks the courage to dispense with the littleness of party politics and, with victory as the goal, go all out to have the things that endure. A Government that grants the demands of already highly paid workers. whose comforts must not decline with a rise in the cost of living, and refuses to recognise soldiers who have left motherless children, shows clearly where its sympathies lie.—l am, etc., Guardian. May 7, 1942.

Sir.—Once again Mr R. Finch has reminded us in plain language that “the rank and file members of the armed forces, who stand between us and the horrors of invasion, are deserving of greater consideration than the privileged trade unionists and higher paid civil servants.” Mr Fraser, our Prime Minister, professes to believe in, and to admire, Mr Churchill. Why then, docs he not emulate him and drop party politics for the duration of the war? ■ The following quotation is taken from an address in the latest number of a Canadian magazine, “ Mr Churchill united the country by putting country and cause above party; and incalculably increased Britain’s productiveness overnight. Now the whole' world trusts him.”—l am, etc.. Muran-atha.