SOLDIERS’ GRIEVANCES

Otago Witness, Issue 3212, 6 October 1915, Page 3

SOLDIERS’ GRIEVANCES

QUESTION IN THE HOUSE, (From Our Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, September 30. In Parliament to-day, Mr Wolford asked the Minister of Defence (the Hon. J. Allen) whether his attention had been called to an article in an Auckland paper reporting a meeting held by returned soldiers at tho Soldiers’ Club on Saturday for the purpose of complaining about the way they have been treated. The different grievances were set out —some in regard to delay in pay, and others in regard to the) sale* of gifts, but the most important of all, which ha hesitated to believe, was that one returned trooper whose pay had not arrived had slept one night in the Domain, Auckland, and one night on the Hobson street wharf rather than ask charity of the Patriotic' Society. If there was no truth in the statement it should be emphatically denied, and if it was true it was a disgraceful fact. Tho Hon. Mr Alien said he had not heard of the last complaint, but the position with regard to returned soldiers was that before leaving tho ship every soldier received £5 in cash. Since the return of the men to their homes tho pay department of the Defence Department had been working night and day to deal with the pay sheets, and he believed that 355 pay sheets had been sent to Auckland within a fortnight of the disembarkation of the men. There m’ght be individual cases where the men who had received £5 were not able to make that last a few days, but everything was being done. that could bo done to expedite the pay, Mr Glover said it had been represented to him that some of the soldiers who returned by the Tahiti, and some by the Willochra, he believed, had only received about half their back pay up to the present. Mr Allen said that everything possible was being done to expedite tho payment of the men in full.

A complaint about the regulation that soldiers who have returned from the war sick and wounded, and who have received their discharges, must return their uniforms, was made by Mr Craigie, who stated that the question had given rise to much feeling at Txmaru.

The Prime Minister replied to the complaint in the absence of the Defence Minister. Mr Massey said ho was not aware of the regulation, but he presumed that Hie rule was that when a soldier was discharged he ceased to be a soldier, and therefore strictly, according to tho regulations, ho was not entitled to wear a uniform. He wished to say, however, that our returned soldiers deserved to be treated well. He would represent the matter to the Defence Minister, and it was possible that somethingmight be done to meet the difficulty raised by the member for Tiraaru.