SHORTENED LIVES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4806, 5 July 1939, Page 5

SHORTENED LIVES

WAR SERVICE EFFECTS. SIX YEAR AVERAGE. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS. According to computations made by Mr. W. E. Cayley Alexander, of Pio Pio, ex-president of the Te Kuiti and District Returned Soldiers’ Association, ex-members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force who died in the Dominion in 1938-39 had lost, on an average, 5.94 years of life as a result of their war service.

Mr. Alexander, who has been making statistical investigations on the subject and publishing annual returns for a long period, arrives at the figure of 5.94 years by comparing returned soldiers with other men who were of enlistment age, 20 to 44, during the period 1914-18, inclusive. The average age of returned soldiers who died in 1938-39, he finds, was 53.2 years, while that of civilians in the comparable group*was 59.14 years.

Earlier Pensions Warranted.

The difference of appoximately six years is undoubtedly below the mark in many cases, Mr. Alexander considers, because it is an average obtained from a computation embracing soldiers who went overseas but did not hear a shot fired, as well as men who performed hard service for three or four years. “It will be readily agreed,” he writes, “that in actual fact’the old soldier bears out the now generally accepted maxim that four years’ service means 12 years off a man’s life.”

The age disparity in the three preceding years, calculated on a slightly less accurate basis, which tended to lower the figures, was as follows: — 1935-36, 10.6 years; 1936-37, 4.09 years; 1937-38, 5.39 years. Mr. Alexander considers that the computations prove conclusively that ex-soldiers should be entitled to apply for the old-age pension or other social security benefits at least five years earlier than men who had no war service,

About 70,000 Survivors.

In support of his estimate Mr. Alexander quotes from a memorandum sent to him by the Government Statistician, Mr. J. W. Butcher, on data obtained from a question upon war service asked in the 1936 census.

Official returns show that, of 98,950 men who went overseas, 77,695 were discharged in New Zealand, and p to March 31 last 7820 had died in New Zealand, leaving approximately 70,000 who may be presumed to be still living in the Dominion. Mr. Alexander considers that a division of 20,000 men fit for home service undoubtedly could be raised from this number.