RETROSPECTIVE ALLOWANCES

Otago Witness, Issue 3414, 20 August 1919, Page 28

RETROSPECTIVE ALLOWANCES

RETURNED SOLDIERS' DEMANDS. CASE FOR THE APPLICANTS. WELLINGTON, August 14. The following is the text of a statement sent by Mr D. Seymour (general secretary of the Returned Soldiers' Association) to Sir James Allen: — . "In complianoa with our promise to submit those items in respect of which this association feels justified in insisting upon the retrospective application of the amended scales I am instructed by my executive to press for an immediate settlement of the following items:—(l) Retrospective application (in full) to children of the # amended scale of allowances which came into force on January 1; 1918. It is understood by the association you are willing to date the payment of a wife's allowance back to the date of the soldier entering oamp. In this matter the association is prepared to urge these payments only in respect of those who finally left on service overseas, (b) Retrospective application of the amended Bcale of allowanoes for widowed mothers and dependents at present in force, (c) Payment of Is per day unpaid during the first two years of the war for the probationary period of a month after entering camp. " While I am instructed (following your request) to press these three insistent claims as matters of urgency, my executive directs mo to do so without prejudice to the following matters, in respect of which we affirm the retrospective principle is equally sound, but upon which in the meanwhile action has been suspended pending further consideration:—Officers' pay, soldiers' financial assistance, out-patients' ration allowance, and the retrospective application of the amendments in the scale of pay and allowances to members of the motor boat patrol and to New Zealanders who enlisted in other units than the N.Z.E.F. "You will therefore appreciate the fact that not being in possession of a schedule embracing all the amendments during the course of the war to the scales of pay and allowances, etc., my executive is able to refer only to those amended scales of which it is cognisant. If you would kindly make suoh a statement available it would be greatly appreciated by the association. I have been definitely instructed not to press for retrospection in respect of the mufti allowance or to the amended scale of fiancee's passage money. '' We base our claim for retrospection on simple justice for those who obeyed the country's first call, and neither waited # to dictate their terms nor state their price. The faot that- these men thought their duty to State in our hour of need greater than their duty to stay at home with their wives and children should not be. held against them as a . penalty, and favour should not thus be shown to their fortunate brothers who waited until the Government passed its more beneficent legislation. We are told by you that it is only fair to assume that the married men with families who volunteered in the early stages of the war were in a position to make provision for their dependents. What evils there for assuming that that is the case? We do not believe that the number of those who went in the early reinforcements in this happy position would be greater than those who went in the closing stages, yet provision was made for the latter irrespective of their financial position. It is fair to assume that those who went away first gave greater and longer services and suffered proportionately more hardships than the later lots. Is it a sound principle of justice that the greater service the less the reward? Is the burden of war, already disproportionately heavy on tho soldier who fought, to be intensified on those who obeyed the first call? We therefore claim that every principle of honour and right demands that a rich and prosperous country should treat the soldiers .who first stood by her with the eamc justice as those who followed. Land values alone are said to have risen some 20 per osnt. on account of our winning the War—an amount probably sufficient to pay the whole war cost. Are the officers and men by whoso sacrifices alone such unearned increment wa=. created not to receive as much for their hardships of 1915 as for tho .latter part of 1918? Are those who performed the impossible on Gallipoli and who fell in hundreds at Quinn's and Courtenay's Posts or up the slopes of Chunuk Bair, those who carried Mcs?ines, who held the line round

Ypras through that terrible 1916-17 winter, and fell before the wire in the slaughter of Passchemdaele- —are they not as worthy of the country's monetary gratitude as those who marched with us to the Rhine? We claim that these are honourable and just debts incurred by a rich and prosperous country towards the dependents of those who by their valour and suffering have saved her from humiliation and the ruination of defeat, and should be at once honoured."