THE PENSION OF A V.C.

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 84, 3 January 1930, Page 8

THE PENSION OF A V.C.

LITTLE KNOWN LAW Dominion Special Service. London, November 21. The announcement in the House of Commons that the holder of a Victoria Cross may, in certain circumstances, draw a pension up to £75 a. year, was news to many people, and even to some members of “the Most Enviable Order.” It is true that the provision is plainlystated in the last published edition of Royal Pay Warrant (1926), but that document is not closely studied outside official circles. Even the • knowledge that the V.C. always has carried an annuity of £lO a year for men below commissioned rank, though fairly general, is not by any means universal. One of the V.C.’s at the Prince of Wales’s dinner declared that manypeople were under the impression his decoration was supplemented by- a substantial pension, and were incredulous when they learned that it amounted only to fifty shillings a quarter. The provision for increasing the £lO annuity is not new, but it lias not so far been taken advantage of to a great extent. This may be due partly to lack of knowledge about it, aud partly- to the conditions governing the powers entrusted to the Army Council. These powers give the council discretion to increase the annuity up to, but not exceeding, a total of £75 a year i« cases where the holder of a V.C. is unable, “in consequence of age or of incapacityoccasioned by causes beyond his own control,” to earn a livelihood. At present there are but eight eases of V.C.’s who take advantage of this provision, and two only are drawing the full £75 a y-ear. A necessitous V.C., who has a disability pension, cannot benefit under the special provision without consideration of the disability- pension. He is entitled to an increase of the V.C. annuity- only to such an extent as may bring the total amount, of pension from public funds —other than a contributory old-age pension—up to £75 annually.