WAR WIDOWS AND ORPHANS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 69, 22 March 1915, Page 9

WAR WIDOWS AND ORPHANS.

KEW PENSION SCHEME. j (From our Special Correspondent.) LONDON" February 5. -wfflit.rer the issue of the war whether it means the end of the Empire or the beginning of its fuller life — we all of us must recognise that we owe more than we can pay to the men who have voluntarily enlisted in i(_ defence. As one writer has put it: "They are dying that we and our children may live the lives of free men," and it would be placing ourselves on an even lower level than we have assi<med to the modern Huns if we permitted the widows and orphans of those who fall, or those men who come back "broken from the war," and their dependents to feel Ithe pinch of that abject poverty which has been the lot of so many of our gallant defenders by land or sea in the past. Mr. Bonar Law, the Leader of the Opposition, drew attention to the matter of soldiers' pensions on two or three occasions in Parliament a couple of months ago. He urged that the Government's pension scheme was totally inadequate, and declared that he would rather the country should spend more money than it could afford than that "the dependants of the men who have died for us, or the men who are disabled on our behalf should end their day 6 in abject poverty." The Unionist leader suggested that the whole question should be considered by a non-party committee, and expressed the hope that the committee would include Cabinet Ministers, in order that that its findings would have the certainty of being carried into law. The Government accepted the proposal. A committee consisting of Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. McKenna, Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, and Mr. George Barnes was appointed, and its recommendations will at least assure immunity from the abject poverty which Mr. Bonar Law feared.

The proposals of the Committee which have just been made public, include an all-round increase in widows' pensions, _nd with, a commonsense appreciation of the evil that would result from widows with small families having no sort of occupation, it is proposed that the pension shall rise as the pensioner grows older. The totally disabled soldier and sailor are to be assnred a minimum of twenty-five shillings a week, and the income of the partially disabled will be brought up to this amount, with an additional allowance for every child in both cases.

There _s little doubt that the com-' mittee's proposals will receive the sanction of Parliament, for there can be only one objection—and that a very mean one—to the new scheme. That objection is that acceptance of the Committee's proposal' will undoubtedly add very materially to the expense of the war. But thus far no voice had been lifted to air this "grievance," and provided the extra burden _j eguitahly distributed no __.glis__aait Is* likely to put up any plea for economies which will involve a reduction of the payments j proposed by the. Committee. . The jiew.j proposals, it is generally recognised, do not err on the side of over-generosity, but they probably represent the best that can be done, for the time being at any rate, and they will certainly be a stimulus to recruiting. The fact that man seems to be placing his family before his country is by no means a sign that he is lacking in patriotism; indeed, the man who rushes off to the recruiting office without giving real thought to what will happen to "the wife and kiddies," will probably prove a "dear bargain" to the Army, since he is probably lacking in intelligence, and also in others of those qualities we expect to find in Thomas Atkins "when the pinch ccnies." When men who have lived for wife and family know for certain that their death or disablement will not mean starvation for those they hold dearest, they will certainly bo infinitely more ready to enlist; indeed, it is said that the mere publication of the Committee's proposals has exercised a most apparent and beneficial influence on recruiting already.