EX-SOLDIERS’ PENSIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 May 1930, Page 7

EX-SOLDIERS’ PENSIONS

COMMISSION’S SUGGESTIONS

MORE AID FAVOURED

[PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

WELLINGTON, May 9. The report by the Ex-soldiers Rehabilitation Commission has been iscued It covers 26 printed pages, 166 witnesses were examined. The committee makes the fo) lowing lecommendations, for all of winch legislation will be necessary. (1) Reduction in age for eligibility for the old age pension for South African War veterans. (2) Reduction in age for elegibility for old age pension, ex-soldiers. (3) Abolition of time limit as an element in the qualification of certain wives as “dependants, with light of anneal for a wife whose application for pension as a dependent is. i efused. (4) Abolition of time limit as an element in qualification of certain widows as dependants, with, the repeal of the proviso that certain widows •shall receive a gratuity instead of Del ( 1 5 S ) 0 Abolition of the time limit of seven years in which “probability” may bo invoked as evidence of “attributability.” ' , . J.- f (6) Formation and incorporation of a ' Soldiers’ Civil Re-establisment League. . (7) Discretionary power in the Minister to allow war pensions to certain New Zealand soldiers, who served with other British forces, and the extension of the benefits of the Discharged Soldiers’ Settlement Acts and Repatriation Act, in certain cases, to British ex-soldiers, other than New Zealanders. Six questions were submitted to the Commission. Replying to the first question, “What are the present conditions and circumstances of persons affected, their approximate, number, and nature of their disabilities? The Commission state: —On the average there are probably between 38 and 45, some as old as 70. Many understated their ages when joining up with the Forces, and the war experience had an unsettling tendency, and a particularly bad affect, when it was sought to repatriate them. They never found a place in the economm mduseml machine, but have drifteu from casual work to casual -vor-x. ana. it is only now when approaching the average age mentioned above that the deepest anxiety and despair is being felt at the prospects for the future, not only for themselves, but for thenwives and phildren. This anxiety and despair is breaking the nerves of the men, and so deteriorating the matena. which it is desirable that we should endeavour to rehabilitate. In general terms, their circumstances may be described as on the “bread and butter” line. Their number is about five thousand, and the disabilities, generally, are due to war wounds and impaired health, due to war services. In reply to question 2, as to the adequacy 'of the pensions, no recommendation is made to increase the pensions to the veterans of the Maoii War. The South African veterans number about four thousand. The Commission does not recommend the request of the South African Veteran Association that' a service pension of £5O per annum be paid to all such veterans, irrespective of health or financial standing, a.nd purely as a reward t for services in South Africa, on a similar pension to all such veterans on attaining the age of G 5 years, but do recommend a reduction of the age for eligibility of the old-age pension in the case of such veterans from 65 to 60 years. The classes of cases arising out of the Great War are discussed in considerable detail. For such cases, the major recommendation of the Commission embraces the formation of a Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment League and that the administration of economic pensions scheme be worked in conjunction with this League. This League, with its branches in every centre, will know the men who are the subjects of the present problem, and will have the employment and rehabilitation officers in touch with them, and' with the executive of the League. As to those men in the class ot oU per cent, disability or over, the League’s officers, with full knowledge of the individual men, will report. “These men are unemployable. They are quite unable to support themselves. We recommend them foi the. full economic pension.” As to others, their cases as potential pensioners will be considered by the League, in connection with its efforts to find work. The League’s committees will have knowledge of all these men. They will know their capabilities, they will know the work they are fitted for, and the work they are doing. They will therefore be able not only to take into account the economic factors in lives of these men, but largely to govern and control these factors, and their policy will be to reduce the need for a pension by increasing the economic and earning factors in each man’s life. We recommend that as a general principle, the finding and recommendation of the appropriate committee of the League should fix the man’s right to the economic pension.