THE REGIMENTAL PAY OFFICE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XL, Issue 12538, 8 May 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE REGIMENTAL PAY OFFICE.

Included in the morning mail of every regimental paymaster in the country just now are dozens of letters from well-meaning busy.bodies whose sympathetic _i.ntere.st in the domestic trials of the wives and other dependants of our fighting men is equalled only by the acerbity and' long-wjudedness of their epistles. Most of these tenderhearted meddlers are "personages" of the rural order-local "big pots," whose dander is roused to the extent of five or six closely and illegibly written pages of protest if their first letters- are not replied to by return of post. "Scandalous incompetency" and "criminal maladministration" are two only of the many impressive terms of denunciation hurled hy these dignitaries at- the harassed head of the paymaster. Here ,'s an extract from a letter of a very common type:— - "Mrs Allswank presents her compliment.?l to the paymaster and wishes trreport that- Mrs Jones, wife of Private Jones, has not received her separation allowance for last week. As this woman is ailing (here follows a long account of the baby's l adventures while "teethins:"), it- is honed that the paymaster will give this case his 'immediate and personal attention." This letter i>' sent to an Army Pay Office whose staff is working seven days at the light- and pleasant task of administering the affairs of six different regiments! Each of those regiments may have as many as twenty pay lists, and the name Jones .being by no means a conspicuous novel tv on those or any other pay lists, it- not unnaturally follows that Mrs Allswank receives a polite note from the Paymaster asking her to bo good enough to state the man's regimental number and regiment.' To this quite reasonable request M<'= Allswank not infrequently responds by threatening to "brina: to the notice o: the War Secretary the scandalous, .'.-!- most criminal, negl'gence of your d.enartment." And she has actually been known to reply that "the information asked has already been furnished by the Woman herself, and if you look ov.;r your papers you will no doubt find it amongst- them." Can one picture a r-ouole of hundred clerks "looking oyer their papers" for information relating to one Jones —regiment not known ?

lii plonsiutr contrast to the above type nl' letter is the following:—

"Sir.—The wife of 123S Private Jones. 10th Battalion. Mudshiro Kogiment, states that her separation allowance for last week is .not yet to hand. Please expedite payment.'" Here we have tlie ideal form of "complaint," and it is a pity a copy could not be framed and placed on the desk of every rural magnate whose vain, tidings at the administrative methods —in all cases the least unw'eldy that can be devised —of the Army Pay Department are fast reducing his waist-line, if not his ehoier. The letters that are received from the wives and other dependants themselves are less open to criticism for the reason that- they are obviously th-e work of women unaccustomed to the use of the pen. One simply cannot laugh at the crudities of diction of these heroic mothers, whose lot 's at best a sad one, and to many of them is—or may be — that of those to whom has come the Greatest Sorrow.

A smile, however, is permitted us for the case —by no means uncommon —of the woman whose husband lias, much to the goodwife's 'disgust, been sent, home as '"not .likely to become an efficient, .soldier" —the stereotyped form of discharge for any cause save misconduct. The man is probably of the "work-shy" type when at home, and: the wife, her prospects of receiving a fixed sum weekly from the Government rudely shattered by the unwelcome homecoming of her unsearred warrior is constrained to record her indignation somewhat after this style—"l don't know why you've sent my man back again. He's going round the village telling everybody how he diddled the army doctors and 'worked his ticket' by pretending he was deaf. I'm sure you might have kept him in the army and tried to make something out of him. He has never done an honest day's work in his life, and never w-'ll uniess he's forced. So hist send for him to come back, as he's hearing as is good as your own." In the early days of the war a few case? occurred where payment- of the separation allowance was continued after the discharge of the soldier. Considering the vast- additions to the strength of the army about this time, and the resultant strain upon the resources of the Pay Department, it is not surprising that these minor irregularities occurred. Indeed, the Department may well congratulate itself that they did not occur oftener. Seldom did these illegal payments continue for long, however. If the nay office concerned did not itself at once' detect and remedy the mistake, a "neebor." jealous of —or. shall we say, more highly principled than —the fraudhlent payee, was sure to inform —anonymously—the paymaster that "I thought it right to let you know that Mrs Blank is still drawing money for her man. although he has been home for two weeks and is back to the pits."