[To rue Eorroa or sax .Srucurot.")
Silk—Your correspondent "X." asks in your issue of the 10th inst. whether "commissioned officers can live on their pay in certain units." As a Lieutenant in a New Army battalion. may I state my own ease in support of an emphatic affirma- tive P My pay is Be. 6d. a day, with an additional 2s. 61 per day as " field allowance" whilst under canvas or in huts, u has been our lot since the beginning of September last. Messing—and very good messing too—costa 2s. 11d. per day, entailing a contribution of only a halfpenny from my own pocket on top of the Government ration allowance of la 91 Being, like many others in the mesa, "on water till abroad," my month's mess-bill, including such incidentals as news- papers, stationery, regimental guests, and so forth, is usually somewhere about £3. There are practically no sutneriptioos or extras, and the £50 allowance on joining for uniform and camp equipment is amply sufficient for all that is reasonably necessary. The officers' private resources vary from £10,000 a year to zero, and in other respects we are probably a fairly typical New Army battalion, where everything is done as well as could be wished in view of the fact that we are (like the rest of the Service) under " active service conditions." Of course Captains and Field Officers are better off still, for, their pay and allowances being higher according to their rank, their out
certainly do not increase in the same proportion.—I
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