American Soldiers' Bonus.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17400, 10 March 1922, Page 6

American Soldiers' Bonus.

Few matters of purely internal coaoern have been bo much, discussed in the United States in the past two or three months as the proposal to pay the American soldiers who fought in the Great. War a bonus out of .national funds, in addition to the amounts which a number of the States

had granted their own soldiers. A Bonus Bill was passed by the lower House of Congress in July, 1921, and was on the point of being endorsed by the Senate when its progress was checked, first by a warning from the Secretary to the Treasury that the proposed expenditure would add to the country's burden of debt and taxation, and later by the President's personal appeal to the Senate to postpone .further action on the Bill for a time. This course was adopted. The Bill, it may be mentioned, offered a choice of methods by which the services of the soldiers could be recognised—by a grant of adjusted service pay in cash instalments, by certificates for deferred payments bearing interest, or by aid in vocational training, in securing houses or farms, or in land settlement. It was apparently impossible to calculate with any certainty what the cost of the scheme would be, estimates varying from three hundred millions to a thousand millions sterling. Some little time ago a movement was initiated, apparently by the American Legion, the organisation which corresponds in many respects wrth our Returned Soldiers' Association, to secure the passage of the Bill. The proposal carried all the more weight because of the Congressional elections which take place this year, and of the beliet among a number of members who intend seeking ree'ection that the organised ex-service men will wield great poorer at the elections. There was a strong desire on the part of some of tbesevnervous politicians that the Bonus Bili- should be passed. The same reasons for not pressing for the measure exist, however, to-day as they did six months ago, and the President is repotted as saying that a searching analysis of exiting and prospective financial resources had failed to reveal any method of raising the money for carrying out the most moderate of the bonus plans without recourse to direct heavy taxation. At once the organised propaganda, in favour of the bonus was met by a strikingly powerful, though wholly unorganised, movement against it, which came in large measure from men who would haV-©' been entitled to receive a bonus. The demand for the bonus which was made by a minority of the ex-soldierft provoked, in the words of the New York "Times," "a "perfect avalanche pi protests from "men who made equal sacrifices" and who thus proved their patriotism by putting, the welfare of the community before their own temporary benefit. From these opponents of the bonus letters poured in upon Senators and Representatives urging that the granting of the bonus should-be deferred until the country could better stand the enormous drain which the proposals .would impose, .and pointing out that if a Bill were passed the. Government would be compelled to levy more taxes, instead of responding to the uniVerrul demand for a reduction of taxation, while another reason for. not projceedingfurther with the. BiH, which was expressed by many ex-service correspondents, was that the additional taxes;would in a few years "eat up" the grants. It was no doubt the opposition to the bonus so generallyexpressed by those who would have been entitled to receive it that led to the Sales Taac Bill, by which it was' pro- : posed to raise the money; amounting to over eighty millions sterling a year for theV first two years; being .killed. The incident is of interest as showing the Americans' recognition of the necessity for reducing expenditure and taxation, and also because it is, we should think, the first instance in history oftbe prospective 1 beneficiaries of a national grant agitating against it ori behalf of the common good. ;