SOLDIERS’ WIDOWS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 104, 1 April 1926, Page 4

SOLDIERS’ WIDOWS.

QUESTION OF PENSIONS. That tho wife of a returned soldier with 100 per cent, disability who married two years after receiving his discharge from the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces should ho entitled to a soldier’s widow’s pension in the event of her husband’s death formed the* basis of one of the requests made by a deputation from the New Zenland Returned Soldiers’ Association, which waited upon the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence and tho Minister of Lands at Wellington. The Hon. A. D. McLeod, in reply, stated that the aftermath of the American Civil SVar was an illustration of how soldiers’ ponsions might be abused. It had been found, ho remarked, that a soldier might receivo a pension for forty years, and then get married at sixty <s.r seventy years of age to a woman who was twenty years of age. Another pension would then go on for r, lifetin,e, and it ivks necessary to guard against the possibility of such an extension of pensions. The Prime Minister said that the matter would he considered entirely on its morits. It would be impossible to give a decision at that moment. Mr Eolleston said he would also like time to go into the matter. He asked Mr Perry, president of the Returned Soldiers’ Asociation, whether l.e thought the discretionary powers of tho board should be maintained, or whether the association asked that widows in tho circumstances mentioned should come in as a right. Mr Perry replied that as a matter of principle tho association did not see why they should not participate in the ponsions scheme as a right. Mr Rolleston once more emphasised the fact of taking precautions against death-bed marriages.