SOLDIERS' PENSIONS.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20524, 18 April 1932, Page 13

SOLDIERS' PENSIONS.

TO THB EDITOR OF THB PEHHSir.—When I read the speech of Mr liargcst in the Hou.se last week, my checks burred with shame. My mind went back to the latter end of 1914 and early 1915. 1 was chairman of tho Wellington Patriotic Society. Wo wero raising money and men. I shall never forget one of many interviews I had with tho late Mr Massey. I had been asked as chairman of tho Patriotic Society if I would undcrtako a tour recruiting for men and money. I spoke about one hundred times in Wellington, Wairarapa, Manawatu, and Taranaki. Before setting out 1 asked Mr Massey for a message, and in his room at Parliament House ho told me to assure all the people with whom I came in contact that in asking the men to volunteer the Government would see that their dependents, or tliev themselves, if returned injured, would be cared for to the utmost capacity of tho State. I hang my head in shame, for as I write I see a young man in Taranaki coming up the hall after the meeting and asking whether he could rely on what I had just stated. I told him that Mr Massey had said .that no Government of the future would dare to fail in carrying out tho promisee then made. He was satisfied. He paid the supreme sacrifice, and now his widowed mother is to be sacrificed upon the altar of Depression 1 I know all that can be said about the State's ability to pay, but did wo consider that when tho men were forced to go? For forced tliev were. Forced bv being ostracised if they did not go, and later forced by a conscription Act which took awav their liberty and made them wards of tho State. War made that a necessity, but war was never so hard and cruel as tho slow, lingering torture of not knowing where tho next meal is to como from- Have wo exhausted all tho means within the State? When 1 think of what w#s promised these men, and then realieo they are still loyal to King and country, I take oft my hat to them. And when I think of those who wero rich made richer and tho fat fatter, and the men whose businesses were kept going by our men going to fight for them, and these same men allowing the Government to break a sacred trust, well, I don't wonder somo men f-eo "red."

What meaningless words, what utter futile sentimental rubbish, is talked about not being able to pay. There are avenues in this country tnat would and could pay many times more than tho savings in pensions if the Government wished it, but it is evident they do not. I am not ,a "Red," neither have I ever voted with Labour. I merely mention this to show I am orthodox in my views, but I will never vote attain for any man or body of men who will not honour the promises mado by the representative Government of tho country to the men who gave themselves for us and who now, in the hour of need, are suffering again the agonies of Anzac. Hero is an opportunity the Church as a whole has missed. There should have been organised protests from one end of the country to the other. Many ministers of the Gospel took the platform and gave utterance to the same promises as I did. How do they feel about it now?— Yours, etc., H. GLADSTONE HILL. April 17th, 1932.