SOLDIERS' REQUESTS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 76, 30 March 1926, Page 9

SOLDIERS' REQUESTS

PENSIONS TO WIDOWS

REMOVAL OF TWO-YEAR LIMITATION.

A deputation from the New Zealand Returned Soldiors' Association, consistof Messrs. A. T. Duncan, W. "Perry, and S. J. Harrison (general secretary), waited on tho Primp Minister and the Hon. A. D. M'Leod and the Hon. F. J. Rolleston to-day, and put various matters before them affecting the welfare of returned soldiers. First of all, Mr. Duncan handed to tho Prime Minister £32 19s, being the unexpended portion of a grant of £250 made by the Government for the purpose of- enabling a delegate from tho association to attend the British Empire -Service League's Conference at Ottawa last year. Mr. Duncan put forward requests that clothing allowances should be made available to wearers of mechanical appliances other than leg amputees. It was indicated that favourable' consideration would be given to this request. Mr. Duncan also asked that widows of soldiers who died should bo entitled to receive a pension, irrespective of when the parties married after the war. At present only the widows of soldiers who were married before the war or within two years after discharge were entitled to a pension. The only objection that could bo raised to this request would bo in tho case of improvident or death-bed marriages. Latterly, however, even.that objection seemed to'have been dropped by the Government. If, however, the Government was still frightened Of the bogey of tho death-bed marriage, the.question,should be allowed to be determined by the War Pensions Appeal Board. Mr. W. Perry said that as a matter of principle the R.S.A. contended that a soldier's widow should be entitled to tho same pension as the widows of those soldiers who died in tho .two-year period now operating. ■ If a man was 100 per cent, disabled and- his death could be attributed to'war service, then why should there be any limitation at all? ' ■ ■ Mr. Rolleston: "Of course, tho danger is the death-bed marriage. If a man is suffering from 100 per cent, disability, and gets married the wife immediately becomes a charge on the State." Ho did not think thero was any other country that gave that concession. Mr. Coates said that he thought it was obvious why the two-year limit was put on. Mr. M'Leod mentioned that after the American Civil War it had been found that a soldier might receive a pension for forty years, and then get married at sixty or seventy years.of ago to a woman who was twenty years of age. Another pension would then go on for a whole lifetime. Tho Prime Minister stated that no decision could be given at tho moment on this request, as it would first of all be necessary for Mr. Rolleston,. as -Minister in: Charge of . War Pensions, to investigate specific cases supplied by the R.S.A. ■ •'■__,,. In regard to a further request that patients who had been in mental hospitals should be -'enabled to have someone to represent them in claims for compensation before the War Pensions Appeal Board, Mr. Coates said that perhaps Mr. Rolleston could take this matter up and bring it before Cabinet.