IMPERIAL EX-SERVICEMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 22627, 20 April 1937, Page 11

IMPERIAL EX-SERVICEMEN.

TO THE EDITOR. ■ Sir,—Regarding the letter in tonight’s ‘ Star,’ does Mr Watts know there are 25,000 Imperial ex-service-men who came to New Zealand since the late war, and many of them are neither members of the Ex-Imperial Men’s Association nor of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association? They are all British immigrants (tinker, tailor, soldier, and sailor), and if any of them apply to mo for assistance throughout New Zealand they are entitled to my assistance and services free—voluntary service—and no membership fee, which they sometimes find it difficult to pay, the amounts being ,15s for the R.S.A. and 5s for the 1m-

perial Ex-Servicemen’s Association. And they can dance and sing together to help the funds of those organisations once a month. Why remark that they must first apply to the Imperial' ExServicemen’s Association? May I refer Mr Watts to the Commissioner of Pensions, who' will no doubt instruct him? It was only after meeting a member of the ex-imperial men’s executive and finding he knew nothing about the arrangements arrived at by Mr E. N. Smith, 0.8. E., from the British Pensions Office with the New Zealand Defence and Pensions Department that I wrote. Why wove the Imperial exservicemen not added to the deputation that waited on Mr Smith at the Pensions Office I was at the Pensions Office at the request of Mr Smith and saw the deputation leaving. On meeting Mr Watts after in Princes street I asked why his president was , not there, and was told he was out of town' and he himself had not been invited, presumably by the R.S.A. of Dunedin. Mr Smith’s visit was a direct answer to my representation in London. On my first arrival in August. 1935, 1 asked Mr Stanley Bald hi, Prime Minister, to ascertain through the conference in Melbourne, how many exImperial ex-servicemen were voluntary patients in the mental asylums of New Zealand, so that the wives and children of these men could claim an economic pension- from the New Zealand Government. His Majesty then received the petition, signed not only in Dunedin, but throughout New Zealand. I do not find it necessary to ask Mr Watts or Mr Fcrens if I may or may not give a report through the Press of the benefits that I have been successful in obtaining for the British immigrant. I can assure Mr Watts there are hundreds throughout New Zealand who are grateful for services rendered. We ask in the British Empire for equality, not preference. In that way only shall we be able to arrange a successful migration poliev for the future.—l am, etc., Orpah Jones-Neilson. April 19.