CHILDREN OF VOLUNTARY RECRUITS.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15027, 22 March 1919, Page 4

CHILDREN OF VOLUNTARY RECRUITS.

RETROSPECTIVE ALLOWANCES DEMANDED.

SAME PAYMENTS AS FOR BALLOTED MEN.

[United. Press Association.]

Wellington, Maicfi 21. ~v ?t- Seymour, general secretary of the JNew Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association, publishes a- statement in reference to the application of an ainendet/ scale of allowances to soldiers' wives and children. .

Ihere is, he says, a general impression that the demands of the association have been met by the Government, 'but anything of the %d has been done and the association intended to press tor retrospective payments in fufi of allowances to' the children of those who volunteered in the early part of the war. lhe early volunteers, he says, went cheerfully and did not begrudge the unavoidable hardships, but where it was possible to do something towards equitable treatment the Government had contested every inch, and yielded .only to pressure. For a year they had contended, in effect, that the country could not afford to treat the volunteer as generously as the conscript. Next, while allowing some £2,000,000 for gratuities • only some £440,000 of this could be spared "in lieu of retrospection" to. satisfy the claims of justice. This has been increased to £500.000, not to fulfil the moral obligation, but presumably to provide, a better line of defence against* full satisfaction and the principle involved

T'.io last position has been reached and the association looked to the public and the press to support it in the demands on behalf of the children of volunteers.