THE SOLDIER'S PAY
By A PAYMASTER THE White Paper on Service Pay claims only to set out " some of the factors which should be borne in mind in any attempt to measure the real value of the remuneration of all kinds received by members of the Services." It is a pity that every one of the factors set out has been chosen to suggest that the Service man's pay is really higher than is commonly supposed. The impression must be given that the Government is reluctant to grant any increases, and if it gives way under pressure, only niggardly con- cessions will result. The fact is that Service remuneration varies very greatly, but for the great majority of men is on a scale which most people will regard as too low.
It is doubly unfortunate, therefore, that a number of the figures given in the White Paper are misleading. This is particularly true of the estimated value to the soldier of payments " in kind "- food, clothing, accommodation, laundry, free travel on leave, medical treatment, comforts and recreational facilities and cheap tobacco. These are assessed as worth 35s. a week to the single man and from 23s. to 25s. to the married. Of these minor items set out, free travel should be ignored, as the need is caused solely by separation from home through service; comforts are provided by charitable organisations rather than the Government, and recreational facilities mainly out of sports-fund levies or canteen-profits ; the " value " of free medical treatment is that health insurance contributions are only partially paid by troops ; and the tobacco concession is only is. per week. All these cannot be put at more than 2S. 6d. per week.
The supplying of most of the soldier's clothing (not all as the paper implies), and its upkeep, is perhaps worth 5s. ; board and lodging is represented, normally, by what the single man has been wont to give his mother, and for the married man by what his wife saves in housekeeping through no longer having him to cater for. For men used to a standard of living of, say, £3 to £4 a week, these cannot be put higher than about 15s. and los. a week re- spectively. Thus the total value of payments in kind is only about 22s. 6d. for the average single man, and 17s. 6d. for the married.
This is the most serious of the misleading statements in the White Paper because it underlies all its calculations of the value of the remuneration of various non-commissioned ranks. Where commissioned officer's pay is discussed, an entirely different basis is taken. To actual pay and separation allowances is added the cash allowances paid in lieu of issues in kind to an officer who is not accommodated and fed by the army or in mess. But one imagines such men are very much in the minority, or will be when more active land fighting develops. Moreover, an officer who does draw these allowances (unless he can live at home) has, in fact, two homes to keep up—his lodgings and his own home—and no mention of this is made in the Paper.
It is only by this quite unreal calculation that the emoluments of a second lieutenant with two children can be made out to be worth £611 a year. In actual fact, if he is living with his men, and in mess, he gets Its. a day, less mess charges of, say, 2S. 6d. a day for himself, out of which he is supposed to pass over 22s. a week to his wife, and a separation allowance of 7s. 6d. a day. Free- dom from income-tax is undoubtedly a valuable concession, but his position—rightly or wrongly—does require considerable expendi- tures which a civilian avoids. He is probably about as well off as a civilian living at home and earning £6 to £7 a week, but no better.
If officers' emoluments came anywhere near the hypothetical figures in the White Paper, there would be no grounds for increasing their pay, but even on the Government's own figures, pay of other ranks is inadequate. Inadequate, that is, if it is accepted as reasonable that the average soldier should be as well off as the average industrial Worker. The latter's earnings (including overtime) are now around £5 per week ; the White Paper, even with its exaggerated valuation of payments in kind, makes the gross earnings of a single private on basic rates £3 per week, and a married man with two children £3 17s. If the man has had two years' service, these figures can be raised by los. for the single man, and 7s. for the married. Even so, earnings remain from 16s. to 3os. below the moderate estimate given of those in industry, and if the figures are corrected for the errors in the official computation of payments in kind, the deficiencies are raised to 2I S. 6d. for the married man with two children, and 42s. 6d. for the single man.
It is no answer to say that cases of hardship are met by War Service grants. These still smack of charity—not unnaturally, since an Unemployment Assistance Board investigator must normally call at the soldier's house—and have to be applied for on a form of questionnaire which cannot easily be answered, and therefore prevents many genuine applications ever being made. In any case, surely the need for hundreds of thousands of these grants is itself. evidence that basic rates are too low.
This will, I think, be the seventh or eighth time soldiers' pay and allowances have had to be increased in three years of war. Fundamentally, the trouble is caused by attempting to combine in war a peace-time pay-system which is completely unsuitable in its framework and administration for present needs. It is too much to hope for its reform now, nor, indeed, would that be practicable. What we can ask is that the extra money which Parliament will have to grant shall be directed to where the need is greatest—the ordinary non-tradesman private soldier, and especially the man with a family. The single man should have more. After all, many of them are continuing to help at home, and saving to get married ; the childless wife has no grounds for an increase, but the wife with two or three children is hard put to it to make ends meet on, normally, 47s. 6d. or 52s. 6d. a week, and cannot help feeling a bit sore when she sees the mounting expenditure of her neighbour. whose husband is " on munitions."
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