SOLDIERS' BONUS BILL

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 116, 17 May 1924, Page 7

SOLDIERS' BONUS BILL

VETOED RY PRESIDENT. LEADERSHIP IN U.S.A. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) WASHINGTON, May 10. The President, Mr. Calvin Coolidge, has vetoed the Soldiers' Bonus Bill. He estimates that the payment of the bonuses proposed would commit the nation to an average annual expenditure of £22,800,000 for the next twenty years. After that the Government would be obliged to sell £000,000,000 worth of bonds. This might jeopardise the value of Federal securities. The outstanding advocates of the bill have announced that an attempt will be made to repass it over the Presidential veto. On its original passage it received more than the necessary two-thirds ( vote in both Houses. [ The tide of enthusiasm for the bill | ran so high after Mr. Coolidgc's veto ! was received, that insistent demands for jan immediate vote were made in the House of Representatives. I In vetoing the measure Mr. Coolidge j lias followed the example of the late President Harding. Congress is likely to reconsider the bill with a view to repassing it because many of the members of each House openly espouse its provisions and are apprehensive as to the opinion of their constituencies at the enduing election. Political observers regard the fate of the bill as a supremo test of Mr. Cooliflpc's leadership of his party. The President's election campaign manacers are confident of his success, however, owing to his recent series of overwhelming victories in the primary elections in important- sections of the country.—(A. land N.Z. Cable.)