TOLL OF WAR YEARS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 9, 10 July 1935, Page 12

TOLL OF WAR YEARS

BILL NEXT SESSION

FAR-REACHING EFFECT

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, This Day. The proposed "Burnt-out Veterans' Bill," which is to come before the next session of Parliament, was discussed by 'Mr. Ferens, secretary of the Dunedin R.S.A., who has returned from tne North Island.

"Headquarters is very optimistic about the matter," he said. "The Bill is at present being drawn up, and all available evidence is being collated so it may be presented to the Government as strongly as possible." The Bill would eventually have a farreaching effect on those men who had had front-line service, and whose breakdown in health could not be proved to be attributable to war service.

The chief difficulty in obtaining pensions was the necessity of proving attributability, and the Bill aimed at removing this difficulty. One of the chief anomalies of the Pensions Act, and one which had been a source of irritation for many years, was the clause which made it impossible for a soldier's widow to obtain a pension unless she had been married within two years of her husband's discharge. It was considered that this period would be considerably increased.