WAR VETERANS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23012, 13 April 1938, Page 16

WAR VETERANS

SCALE OF ALLOWANCES ASSOCIATION'S SUGGESTIONS THE SUPERANNUATION SCHEME LOWER QUALIFYING AGE URGED [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] WELLINGTON, Tuesday Evidence on behalf of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association was given before the Special Parliamentary Committee, which is inquiring into the Government's national health and State superannuation schemes. Referring to the War Pensions Acts a memorandum submitted stated that the association desired that the legislation pnd its administration should be retained in its entirety, and not submerged in any general scheme. The association submitted the following as a reasonable schedule of war veterans' allowances in the existing circumstances: —Single men, 30s a week. Married men: Without children, 45s a week; with one child, oosj with two children, 655; three children, 755; and four children, 85s. It was also suggested that the maximum should be 80s a week, but that a veteran bo allowed earnings, or other income, to the extent of £52 a j-ear. Where k veteran required a housekeeper to care for his dependent children, he should be granted an amount which his wife, if living, would have received. Under present-day conditions, the association saw no possible justification for further withholding the restoration of the y cuts in the economic war pension.

Referring to national superannuation, the memorandum stated: "We have drawn attention previously to the premature ageing of ex-servicemen, and certain, of our associations have strongly urged tho view that ex-servicemen should qualify at 50. The section of the community contemplated by the superannuation scheme, however, is regarded as one which has suffered less in this respect than the section contemplated by the War Veterans Act, and for that reason it is considered that a reasonable age for qualification for ex-ser-vicemen should bo 55 years. "The association feels that the war pension for a physical disability should do exempted up to 15s a week for tho purposes of superannuation. The pension referred to is an attempt to compensate for specific war disability, or, in other words, to make him a whole man again. A 15s limit is suggested because beyond that a war pension exserviceman can apply for an economic pension."