"BURNT-OUT" SOLDIERS

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22795, 22 August 1939, Page 13

"BURNT-OUT" SOLDIERS

TO THE IDITOB OF THE PBISB. Sir.—l should like to know why it is that the ,burm-out digger is getting the wprst of the deal in the way of allowances, now that social security has come. A man has to prove he was In the firing line to get a paltry 25s a w©ck for himself and 15s for his wife. We know the War Pensions Board has discretion in special circumstances to increase his allowance to 30s and 20s for his wife. Why not grant it straight away and not leave it to the discretion of anyone? I know what the board’s discretion is. If a man has any push, I think would have a better chance than the poor devil who has no push. Then again, a war veteran’s child under 10 years of age is only allowed 5s a week while all other pensioners’ children are allowed 10s a week. Surely it costs as much to keep the soldier’s children. Why make this difference? When the war veterans’ allowance first came into force I voiced my disapproval, as I said there should not be two classes of pensions or allowances. When I spoke about it to a late president of the Returned Soldiers’ Association he said it was the thin edge of the wedge, and that after a while they would get it altered to a war pension. Well, I told him that a lot of these wedges jammed, and would never be shifted. Now it is proved that I was right; it is well stuck, and if we don’t Took out these old diggers will all be, dumped under the social security pension. Then any benefit they lised to be able to get as •war pensioners will be barred to them. At the present time you have to be a war pensioner to be able to get a little help from the Patriotic Society, or else you have to be appealing for a war

pension. A lot of veterans have told me they are sick of living on the small allowance they get, -and myself I can t see how they live and rear healthy children. I should say that any man who put in two hours in the firingline should get the benefit of a war pension, and I think it is up to all diggers, irrespective of what political party they belong to, to work with me to get these men and their dependants better conditions than they have at the present time.—Yours, etc., GUNNER, 1914. August 15. 1939.'

[The facts are substantially correct, according to a statement made to ‘The Press” by Mr E. F. Willcox. secretary of the Christchurch Returned Soldiers Association. Mr Willcox said that the New Zealand Returned Soldiers Association was not satisfied with the position, and as late as last June further representations were made at the dominion conference to increase the children’s allowance to bring it in line with the ordinary invalidity pension. War veterans, who were unfitted for any employment, could apply for the extra pension of 30s and 20s for their wives, said Mr Willcox. but this would only be granted if the War Pensions Board agreed that the applicant was not fit to follow any occupation whatever.]