INCREASED WAR PENSIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 183, 2 August 1923, Page 4

INCREASED WAR PENSIONS.

The growth of expenditure in pensions in New Zealand has caused some concern, but there will bo no opposition to the proposals that the Government has brought down for treating more generously disabled soldiers and the dependents of the dead and incapacitated. There is a universal feeling that all who suffered by the war should be treated well by the country to which they gave so much, but tho public has not been satisfied that in every case provision has been as generous as it Should be. The defects in the pensions system have been the product more of administrative shortcomings than of faults in the law itself, but the new proposals are designed to improve the system in both respects. Supplementary pensions, to tie called economic pensions, are to be granted to soldiers and dependents, and in considering applications for these the Pensions Board may take a wide range of things into consideration —the ability of the applicant to obtain suitable employment, the cost of liv'ni>. nrd "such other factors of economic significance as it considers relevant." There are other concessions, such as the increase in allowance for an attendant on a disaoled soldier, and the removal of the limitation on the right of wife and children to a pension in respect to an ex-soldier's death to seven years after the receipt of the wound or injury or the commencement of the disease. The trend of the proposals is to make the system more elastic and humane, to bring it into closer touch with actual | needs. The creation of an Appeal Board, which will not be entirely medical, meets a demand that has often been made for a body to review decisions of the Pensions Board. The cost of all these concessions is estimated at £80,000. It must b e remembered that the cost of military pensions is a decreasing quantity, and that last year's payments showed a considerable reduction ( £255,000) on those of 192122. Another £80,000 is not a large sum to provide in order to give to ex-soldiers and their dependents the comfort and . justice they deserve. i ■■