A PENSIONS MINISTER

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 100, 25 October 1916, Page 8

A PENSIONS MINISTER

MR. A. HENDERSON TO BE APPOINTED

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COFIMSHT.)

(Received October 25, 12.30 p.m.)

LONDON, 24th October.

Mr. A. Henderson (Paymaster-General and Labour Adviser to the Cabinet) is about to be appointed the first Minister for Pensions.

Mr. J. M. Hogge, M.P., who is recognised as the leading authority in Parliament on the pensions question, recently wrote an article for the Daily Mail, advocating the appointment of a Pensions Minister.

The appointment of Mr. Arthur Henderson as Paymaster-General, he wrote, has awakened a fresh interest in pensions. The Paymaster-General presides every Thursday over lv's twenty-three colleagues, or such of. them as are there, ivnd reviews their work. Mr. Henderson is a Labour man. The bulk of our new Army is composed of men who labour. The significance therefore has not been missed.

Chelsea is the pivot of the whole pensions scheme for soldiers, and while we must not forget the Navy, we must remember that the Army runs into as many millions and more than the Navy in hundreds of thousands. On Chelsea depends how far the Statutbiy Committee is required. The Chelsea Commissioners consist of twenty-three men, all of whom save one with military rank, and that one an old War Office man. That is not counting the chairman. They were created anew in, 1913, before the war. Three of them are paid—-one at £600 and two at £300, or less than is earned by a panel doctor.. We are now engaged in squeezing through the Committee almost as many cases as there were men in our old Regular Army. It is a. hopeless task.

The methods of Chelsea are strange. They attempt to determine a man's pension by estimating his capability to earn wages. I would not care for the task Who shall say what the probable earning capacity of a motor-omnibus driver is who liti* lost an arm, or a tailor, or a steeplejack? Who shall determine how much a musician will earn who has lost a finger, or an engraver who has lost,his nerve? I cannot imagine a more hopeless, haphazard process. When this is done by men whose training does not bring them into contact with the many varied vocations of the men of our new Army it makes confusion ■ worse confounded. It may have been possible in the days of the old Army. It is impossible in the days of the new.

■ The Statutory Committee is the handmaiden of Chelsea arid Greenwich. To it turn all the disappointed to see if they can get a bigger pension. There they are met with all sorts of obstacles, which I have tried to make plain in my .'previous articles. Finally, there are the local funds, the special funds,1 institutions, and the like. , . . /■ | ' NO OVERLAPPING. j. The money granted for ;the Statutory Committee is based upon 250,000 deaths. It is not possible to calculate how many that means in dependents, but it cannot be less than 500,000. Then we must add the wounded. There cannot finally be many short of 1,000.000 people involved in some way or other by men who have suffered in the war. The annual sxim for flat-rato pensions will not be small. The problem will be a large one and will remain with us for at least a generation. It must therefore be someone's special care if wo are not to slip into carelessness. Hence the demand for a Pensions Minister and a Pensions Boa.rd. Public opinion wants to make sure that all will go well.

The arguments in favour of the proposal are many and sound. The State must come to the pensioner, not the pensioner to the State. Those unfortunate people should have everything done for them, and should not be compelled to forage for themselves. There ought to be a Central Pensions Building where application can be made. Oaoo the application is made those inside that building should exhaust. the possibilities of pension, of care, of training, of employment, and finally the recipients should receive what they are entitled to in the shape of a book of drafts on their near- i est post office. There should, never be ; any hiatus in the arrangement. It is : surely simply a question of organisation. ■ I dread schemes which overlap. Gret j hold o{ all the schemes of relief and share their advantages out evenly, and j a great and desirable end will be '' achieved. Such a scheme would absorb the Admiralty and War Oliice flat-rate pensions, the Statutory Committee, and the Eke. It would pigeon-holo every case. Everyone would know what had been done for any or every recipient, and fraud would be eliminated. GIVE THE MAXIMUM AT ONCE. Besides a scheme of centralisation and co-ordination there could bu a scheme of after-care in which local enthusiasm could be utilised. This would rid the. whole project of any charitable exploitation. It would moan scrapping the methods of Chelsea. For instance, I would have trade committees to determine a man's capacity. I think the Amalgamated Society of Kngineers or other trade organisation;* could determine that better than any Chelsea , Board. The medical men who run our great insurance companies would be safer i guides. Or I would reverse i.he present I process of giving a temporary pension "iov the first sis months And give the maximum in every case.', While a man lis recuperating and looking about for work he needs the maximum. In the first few months he has his relapses and recurring weaknesses. It is the time when he should be pushed least. For him trying to take his place again ia civilian life it is largely the great experiment—just the time when he wants the State nearest to his elbow. His wife and children havo had a, hard enough time to gut along on their separation allowance. What could tie bought for 12s 6d in August, 1914, can only be purchased now for 18s. Whan ha gets his pension—more particularly- the partially disabled man—it is seldom more than, say, 15s, and they have a-U to struggle along on that until he gets work.-. The case for the whole grant in the first weeks is, I think, unanswerable. I" should like to see such a scheme taken in hand. Mr. Henderson may if he cares to, and he certainly has the sympathy and interest necessary to work wonders by making a good beginning at Chelsea. With Chelsea remodelled, reorganised, garnished, and swept clean there is a bright prospect for those whom the war has broken.