PROVISION MADE

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 68, 13 December 1933, Page 8

PROVISION MADE

Interment of Indigent Ex-Servicemen ASSOCIATION EXPLAINS The attention of Dominion headquarters of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association has been drawn to the statement of Sir G. S. Richardson regarding the burial of Imperial exservice men as paupers and making a suggestion that the National War Funds Council should agree to allow the establishment of funds, by a deduction of a percentage from t each monthly grant which is made for relief of unemployment, such funds to bear the cost of burial of indigent Imperial exservice men. There Is, states the association, absolutely no need for the establishment of a fund for this purpose, as provision has been made for the payment of burial expenses of all ex-service men who, otherwise, would be buried as paupers.

In the event of the death of an exservice man, who served with the N.Z.E.F., or with a New Zealand contingent in the South African War, when he, or his dependants, are indigent or destitute, application to the nearest Registrar of War Pensions for burial will enable the interment to be carried out in a proper manner. The cost, where indigence is proved, is borne by the New Zealand War Pensions Department. Similarly, when an ex-service man of the British, or ’ Imperial Forces, or a man who served with the forces of other parts of the Empire, dies, the cost of interment, where indigence is shown, will be borne by the New Zealand Government In the latter category application should also be made to the nearest Registrar of Pensions. This is claimed to be in accordance with the definite promise given by Ministers of the Crown, some years ago—that no man who fought-for the Empire would be buried as a pauper. Only last week, It was stated, payment was made by the New Zealand Government for the burial expenses of an Imperial ex-service man who died in Indigent circumstances in Hawke’s Bay. ‘