DESTITUTE OLD SOLDIERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15520, 30 January 1914, Page 4

DESTITUTE OLD SOLDIERS.

VIEWS OF LORD ROBERTS. [PROM OUR own CORRESPONDENT.] London, December 19. Speaking at the military bazaar Lord Roberts said :— Unfortunately the country takes scant heed of her soldiers, and it also takes little care of the health and welfare of the class from which our soldiers are mainly drawn. By force of compulsion, the dreaded compulsion of destitution, a j proportion of those whose health is not i broken take temporary refuge in the army. When they join their condition becomes i very different. They are well fed, well i clothed, well housed, well paid, and in ■ the course of a few months they develop into fine-looking, straight upright young : men. They are taught good habits of discipline, order, obedience, and regularity, and any officer who has had the good for- : tune to serve with our soldiers in the field knows what gallant fellows they are before the enemy. When the time comes for their pensions to be claimed they can perhaps, with great difficulty, find some kind of employment, but tho case is v?ry different with the me® of short service. The pensioned men are a mero tracti compared with the men discharged on ot,]y sixpence a day after seven years, that allowance lasting for the remaining five years while they are compelled to serve with the reserves. (' Shame!') It is during that t'me that the shoe pinches; it is in that time that they find great difficulty in getting employment in civil life, because they ' 1-ave never been taught any trade, and it j is then that State aid is most urgently | needed." t