SOLDIER PENSIONERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 122, 25 May 1932, Page 5

SOLDIER PENSIONERS.

HANDICAP UNDER NO. 5 SCHEME. PROTEST IN DUNEDIN. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) DUNEDIN, this day. "Although 14 years have passed since the war ended the functions of the committee have not ceased, but are becoming greater year after year. To date 22,2G9 applications have been received from soldiers and £139,950 has been spent in giving assistance." So stated Jlr. J. J. Clark in presenting the soldiers and dependents' welfare committee's report at the annual meeting of the Otago Patriotic and General Welfare Association. He claimed that no part of the Dominion was doing more for returned soldiers than Otago. During tlie past year, he added, £30,000 had been expended in providing work for returned soldiers. Mr. Clark then referred to a feature of the Government's unemployment scheme, against which they protested to the Minister last year, the taking into consideration of a soldier's pension when allocating work. They had maintained that a soldier received a pension as a recompense for anatomical loss incurred in the defence of his country or for the lowered state of physical 'wellbeing resulting therefrom. By the operation of No. 5 Scheme the Government was practically depriving these men of their pensions.