WAR PENSIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 57, 4 September 1937, Page 9

WAR PENSIONS

THE COST IN BRITAIN

Since 1914, war pensions have cost the State £1,920,000,000, says the "Daily Telegraph." At the peak, the number of beneficiaries was over 3,000,000. It is now about 1,000,00 ft, to whom over £40,000,000 a year is being paid. The total expenditure will ultimately exceed £2,000,000,000.

These figures are given by the Ministry of Pensions" in its annual report, which includes a survey of its twenty years' work in providing" for those disabled or bereaved through the Great War. ■

The Minister of Pensions, Mr. H. Ramsbotham, points out that the unification of pensions administration in 1916 meant "a new and larger view of the State's obligations towards those injured and killed in a national war; the provision of the most skilled medical and surgical treatment of ifevery kind as well as the re-education of the disabled to fit them for civil occupations; special assistance and care for the welfare of nearly 2,000,000 ex-service-men's children; and a great variety of supplementary assistance." ANTICIPATIONS EXCEEDED. Mr. Ramsbotham adds that the scheme of compensation and assistance has far exceeded, both in the number of beneficiaries and in cost, the anticipations of those who framed it originally. "But the nation has never grudged the cost, and has, I think, the satisfaction of knowing that the sufferers from the war have not been ungenerously dealt with." Claims to pension fell from their peak of 950,000 in 1919 to 47,000 in 1923. As to disability compensation, the maximum number drawing compensation was reached in 1920, when the total for all ranks was over 1,200,000. The present total is 450,000.

The greater generosity of pension schemes is shown by a comparison between pre-war and post-war scales. Before the war a totally disabled exprivate with a wife and two children received a weekly pension of 17s 6d. Today the figure is £3 3s 6d.

Further comparisons between the old and the present average rates are given in the following table:—

Before After war. war. s. d. a. d. Plsnliled ex-privnto 8 1! . 18 6 Widow < 5 0 30 0 Widow with 3 children .. - 9 U 50 2

Adult dependant

The report ends with a comparison between the British and foreign pension systems, which shows that the total disability pension in this country is markedly higher, in relation to average wages and costs of living, than in any other country.