LYONS' ANNUITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 122, 26 May 1939, Page 15

LYONS' ANNUITY.

PAINFUL ARGUMENT.

SOLDIERS' WIDOWS PROTEST

OLD AGE PSNSION ATTACKED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDXKY, May 19. After arjriunent which in the vircuiustances must be accounted unfortunate, the Federal Parliament passed the Annuities Bill, allowing; Dame Knid Lyons £."iOO a year for life, unless she remarries, and £,>OO a year for her 11 children for the next 1(1 years, until the youngest becomes Hi. The original proposal of the Prime Minister. Mr. Menzies. had no time limit attached to it as far as the Lyons children were concerned, and when objection was taken to thi* Mr. Menzies ,-ery wisely at once withdrew the bill for an all-parties conference, of which the new proposals were the result.

Unfirtiinately. during Hip interval, the ]>eiisi<m proposals l»<-ainp the centre of an unhappy incident in Sydney. The Widows of the A.f.F. Association had <sent a letter to Mr. Mcnzies protecting against the original |)iopos«l" and citing several cases w lie ire the widows of returned soldiers were ekinu out a miserable, half-starwd existence on pensions of a few .shillings a week.

Their argument was that the widows of men who had f-iven up their lives for their country deserved as well of the country as the widow of its Prime Minuter. To this let'.er. however, the secretary of the association added a postscript alleginj; that Mr. Lyons had been insured for a very lar«;e Mini. Apparently she made no attempt to check up the truth of the report, which was subsequently stated to be quite false, and three vice-presidents of the association, including Mrs. Steven*, the wife of the Xew South Wales Premier, immediately resigned in protest.

When the revised piopo><ils were presented to Parliament Mr. read a letter from Dame Knid in which she said that she had felt, it not unseemh that the people of Australia, through their Parliamentary representatives, should make whatever provision they -de-ired for the future of the dependent children of their lute servant, the Prime Minister. The whole matter, however, she stated, had become extremely distressing to her. She therefore 'a*ked that any bill dealing with the matter should first be approved by all parties in the House and that any annuity would continue only until such time as the restoration of her health would enable her to provide for her children's needs. The reading „f this letter was described by the Labour leader in the Senate. Senator Collins, as a piece of showmanship. He protested that they should be concerned not only with the necessities of the Lyons family (remarking that, the size of Mr. Lyons' family was hi* own rexpomtibilityi. but with the necessities of all the poor and needy. The present old aae pension „f £1 A week was also attacked as inadequate this week by a suburban Mayor, who .-aid the State was . sl , mean that old age pensioners had to subscribe 3d a week to a funeral fund to prevent themselves being buried as pati|K'rs when they died. The stock excuse, he said, always was that money was not available for more generous pension*. "What is possible for war is possible for peace.'" lie declared. "The <o~t of an increase in tin ; 'nsion would be only an infinitesimal fraction of what is being si>ent on defence. Supposing a parent of the Prime Minister was dying and a voice from heaven said, •Your mother or father shall live, but only "4m condition that you increase the old" age pension by HI/' a week.' What would be the outcome? The answer i.s plain. There cannot therefore be any talk of the financial impossibility of granting an increase.