CHARITY DOLES TO VETERANS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 265, 28 October 1911, Page 4

CHARITY DOLES TO VETERANS.

The Military Pensions Bill now passing the House without amendment is not welcomed by the veterans who ask for a military pension instead of having to accept the old age charitydole. They rightly claim that they arc entitled to receive some direct recognition for their services to their country, and that their pensions should be in payment for services rendered and not a dole disguised under the name of military pension. The Bill, as reported in the House last night, will call forth the contempt and ridicule of all military men in every English-speaking country. It contains all the obnoxious conditions of pauperism which arc to be found in the OkLage Pensions Act. and is a travesty on the term military pension. M’hen Sir Joseph Ward states that “the Bill will meet the desires of the veterans from sentimental motives to have a military pension—that it met the desires of the veterans to a letter.” he is stating that which is absolutely contrary to fact, and in making such an assertion he shows how incapable he is of sympathy with the petitioners. The petition was for pensions for the survivors of the Maori War veterans on the same lines as the pensions granted by the Home Government to veterans of the Indian Mutiny, and. it was not asked nor expected that the veterans who had not served in the Maori war could claim under it. It is ridiculous for Sir Joseph to state that the granting of the pension would mean an expenditure of £13.000 a year. There are at the most 150 to 200 Maori war veterans still living, and the expenditure could not exceed £5OOO. Perhaps half the veterans are drawing the old-age pension now. and the additional cost to the country in that case will be not more than £2OOO. If the veterans’ petition for pensions was granted, the expenditure would disappear in a very few years. The youngest man who fought in the Maori wars has passed the allotted span of three score years and ten, and the least the country they fought for can do is to make their few remaining years b:l[>[>ier by the knowledge that their services in time- of stress are recognised by the younger generation.