RETURNED SOLDIERS

Evening Star, Issue 20316, 26 October 1929, Page 15

RETURNED SOLDIERS

EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS The . Royal Commission, inquiring into the position of unemployed or nrieconomically employed returned soldiers finished hearing Mr White’s evidence yesterday afternoon, after which a number of questions were asked and answered. Evidence was then given by the Rev. D. Dutton (president of the South African Veterans’ Association), who said that they had been instructed by the executive of their branch to place the following information before the commission. The fact that twentyseven years had elapsed since the termination of the Boer War had placed the requirements of the South African returned soldiers in a category d’ffering in some essential respects from those of the Great Y/ar, and this must be bone m mind in any inquiry into the physical and economical incapacity of South African returned soldiers, either at present existing or likely to arise in the future.

The preliminary' points to, lie noted were as follows(1) A precedent had been established in granting a pension for military services to Maori War veterans. There had also been a system of land grants to veterans of that war. (2) Probably no other country in the world had treated the soldiers so liberally as New Zealand had done in regard to the returned men of the Great War in matters such as (a) pensions for war disabilities (both surgical and medical) and also the economic pension; (b) Government repatriation schemes, and grants of land advances under the D.S.S. Act; (c) assistance from patriotic funds in case of disabilities not duo to war service 'and grants for other purposes; (d) preference of employment granted by the Government, municipal, and priv«le employers. (3) The case of the South African War returned soldiers, however, was in marked contrast to th*t of the Maori War and the Great War.

There had been no pension grunted to South Africans for military sem'ce, nor any system of land grants (as in the Maori War). It was true that the Governmen* in 1926 had placed on the Statute Book an amount of £l3 additional to the old-age pension should a South African veteran at the age of sixty-five yra.-s declare himself to be in necessitous circumstances. The Maoj-i War pension had, however, been considered an honourable reward for war service, and conditions had not been imposed whim detracted from this honourable distinction. No other pension was known to carry such a discrimination.

Pensions for disability in ca»-3 of war wounds had been on a much inferior scale as compared with the Great War, though this was now rectified. There had also been a much more generous attitude in regard to medical disabilities being a charge on the pensions fund in the .recent w r ar than obtained in the South African War, in which war medical disabilities had been barely recognised While there had been a greater intensity of fire in the Great War, causing a larger proportion of wounded men, thex-e had been an inadequate . diet and insufficient clothing in the South African War which led to a greater incidence of disease in the field, and which had told , also op the general health of the men in after life. This factor could not now be assessed for pension purposes. There had also been no economic pension as at present There had been no Government repatriation schemes or grants of land similar to the D.S.S. Act. Such benefits now might be of useful service in a proportion of individual cases, but their general application would be too belated to bo of service to the large majority of men.

_ Assistance from patriotic funds for disabilities not d.ne to war service or for other circumstances had been of a meagre description in South African times. During the last twenty-seven years the actual assistance from the Government in this regard had been a total of £250.

War service at the time of the Boer War had often been ignorantly considered both by public ard private employers. more or less as a bar to employment or re-emplovment than as an asset. It had been ccsidered that war service had necessarily made men unfitted for civilian employment. This errnr_ had taken years to live down, and it was pleasing to South African veterans to note that a much more sympathetic attitude had been accorded to the men of the Great War. The South African returned soldiers desired to place their considered ■opinion before the commission. They thought that their primary requirement was to ensure that in their old age the would be in a position adequately to maintain themselves and their dependents. It was row too late in the main to institute for them the advantages accorded to the men of the Great War, and therefore the precedent of the Maori War was the only one left to follow—namely, a military pension at. say, the ago of sixty-five years. They considered also that in view of the failure in the past to accord any privileges whatever to South African men, any discrimination by a financial test in awarding their military pension was now quite out of place. ft had been argued that if the South African veterans were given a military penskn similar to' that of the Maori War, the men of the Great War would claim a similar pension in addition to the privileges already accorded them. This did not necessarily follow, and even if it did, South African veterans desired to point out that this factor should not be allowed to weigh unfairly against their receiving the _ full privileges already accorded to either of the other two war groups. It _ was now too late to receive the privileges given to one of the groups—the Great War returned soldiers.

Up to the presert, the Booth African men had been almost entirely reflected. ro doubt largely due to their own failure in the past to make a claim on behalf of them-elves. It was thought, however, that the people of New Zealand did not desire intentionally to deal unfairly with them, and to penalise them now_ on that account. Services had been given in youth without anv thought of reward; but no body of > men liked to feel that discrimination was being exercised against them It was felt on mature consideration that the justice of the claim now being made by the entire body of the South African veterans would be acknowledged. Unfortunatelv, during the last twentv-seven years manv of their old comrades h«d died ir necessitous circumstances. It was row too Me in their case for the Dermic of the dorm'nirm of New Zealand to keeo Mt’i and nr-Mm A he pro—isfif! pi?' l ' l oo bpb-ilf —fh-’t the yeu-'r •"o'y wM ’"'d ynlii-to'dlv r>t"«e w’’"n tbn W—was rTi+MP" in fi-.-o—i, Ija «de-f-,r p- ft-xi-

T fc was also +’’?+ tM gnuoydiry renuMnients of the c outh 4f rican returned soldier* r-as that some eF-Mive Become should be formuMed adequately to t.are for individual South African veterans (and their dependents), who might break down be-

fore reaching the age of > cixty-fivp years. Such a breakdown in a considerable number of instances bad been largely due to their former war service—a factor now mostly impossibla to assess according to the rule governing the ordinary medical board proceedings. Dr Falconer added that he was a member of the Organising Committee and the International Committee for Mental Hygiene, and secretary of the New_ Zealand National Council foe Medical Hygiene, and said that the last-named body was very interested in the inquiry. It was of opinion that the question the commission was likely to discuss might have important lessons for the community as a whole outside the immediate benefit entailed to that section of the community;—the disabled returned soldiers. He therefore placed before the commission a book - entitled 4 Mind and Work, 1 by Charles S. Myers, director of the l.'stoholoyicnl Laboratory of the Pand" dgo Universitv. and a member of the fnd“strial Fa byre P"seTeh B'nrd The cumm’ssion then adjourned till this m^rni-o.