DURATION.

Observer, Volume XXXVII, Issue 44, 7 July 1917, Page 2

DURATION.

And Lawful Discharge

ALL New Zealanders know with what indecent haste the State discharges" honourable soldiers from its employ and quite often long before it is settled with them fi-

nancially. The average soldiier is a "loose end" when he again becomes a civilian and he doesn't fit down too easily. But when the Army authorities hand him his discharge hes is entitled to believe that he's finished with. He considers himself at liberty to enter into business, to take a civilian job, to try a farm (if he has the cash), to be at liberty to the same extent as any citizen not controlled by any Aainy Act.. Eight or more soldiers were discharged out of the Army on June 9. All these men had been wounded once—some twice. They were returned to New Zealand medically unfit on May 12 and, of course, assumed when they got their discharges that these discharges meant what was written on them.

One is not aware that there is any precedent for what subsequently happened. The men were warned that their discharges from the Army had been cancelled, and ordered to report to a Medical Board. It is curious that men who held a discharge from the Army should obey the order to parade. Perhaps they weren't "old soldiers." Anyhow they obeyed. The Medical Board did not examine them, but ordered them to report at Trentham pending the arrival of their medical reports from England, In parenthesis the N.Z. Medical authorities do not co-ordinate with the English medical authorities. One knows of a case of a seriously wounded man whose papers were marked "six months leave" hy an English Medical Board. The "N.Z. Medical Board gave him a fortnight's leave. That was eighteen months ago. He is still medically unfit. These eight men discharged out of the Army and recalled were posted to the Twenty-eighth Reinforcements and on Friday last these recalled soldiers who fought for 2? years were given their ten days final leave.

If all the facts are as stated, a N.Z. Army discharge is not worth the material it is written on and no soldier has any right to undertake civilian work until he finds out what are the intentions of the Army authorities. In the case of these men it seems obvious that waiting for their English medical reports was simply red-tape, as it isn't likely those papers would arrive until the soldiers wore well on their way back to France with a sad memory of the civilian clothes they bought on the strength of their final qnd complete discharge from the Army. Evidently there is no final and complete discharge from the Army and a N.Z. final and complete discharge is a fiction. There are possibly reasons for the cancellation of the discharges of men wounded and unfit. The English authorities may have cabled to say that they classed them medically unfit in error. They may have been extraordinary brilliant soldiers whom the War Office wanted at any price, or the Ad-jutant-General may have felt that their discharges had been obtained unfairly, or that the wounds were assumed, or that the British Medical authorities were not up to their work.

One knows a soldier of another Avar who possesses three final and complete dischages from the N.Z. Army although he was never recalled after ho got the first. He was considered discharged all the time, but parchment was cheap in those days and trifling defects such as leaving out the "Character" of a soldier had to be remedied by subsequent tons of new parchment. The discharge of wounded men and the cancellation of discharges and the orders to rejoin may represent a tactical exercise for the clerical division of our Army. What is clear is that no discharged soldier should start earning a living until the Army has made up its mind as to whether the discharge is in earnest or only a red-tape exercise. Soldiers in the N.Z. Army enlist for the duration of the war or until lawfully discharged. These soldiers erroneously believe-

that their discharges were lawful. It would be deeply interesting to know by what paragraph in Army Regulations the authorities are guided when they virtually say "No soldier being lawfully discharged from the Army shall consider such discharge either lawful or final." Set to music it would make a revue.