SOLDIER SETTLERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20612, 10 January 1929, Page 10

SOLDIER SETTLERS.

REQUEST FOR MONEY ADVANCES DEPUTATION TO MINISTER OF LANDS. (Special to Daily Times.) , CHRISTCHURCH, January 9. Certain matters of moment, to soldier settlers cud their dependents were submitted to the Minister of Lands (Mr G. W. Forbes) by a deputation from the Returned Soldiers’ Association 1 this' afternoon. Mr W. B. Leadley said the first thing wanted was the restoration of <hat privilege which hud been suspended—the granting of free trees to soldier settlers for shelter belts flud other : purposes. They had innumerable requests from all over the country for - free trees. They also wanted to ask that the Discharged Soldiers’ Settlement Act should be put into working order. The late Mr Massey had given an undertaking that none of the legislation put on the Statute Book would be cancelled until all the men bad had an opportunity of taking full advantage of it. Certainly none of it had been cancelled, but it had become inoperative. To-day the only advances they could get for returned soldiers were for 50 per cent, war disability men and T.B. men. There were still, however j a number of men .wanting Louses. They wanted money put into the discharged soldiers’ settlement account. In the old days it was possible to get advances, not only for new houses, but for buying houses, and they thought that civil servants 6n transfer should bo given an opportunity of buying bouses. Th?y did not ask that in every case,' of course, Mr E. F. Wilcox (secretary of the association) said that the applications for grants for houses were still very numerous. The association would also like aii inquiry into the possibility of reloaniug some of the money that was being paid back to fresh cases under the Discharged Soldiers* Settlement Act Mr Forbes, in reply, said the matter of trees was not in his department, but in the Forestry Department. Ho would, however, bring the representations before that Minister. He would be pleased to go into the other matter. A large amount of money had been' paid back under the housing policy, and applications were now being cleared up. The board was working'overtime, and the difficulty would soon be overcome. He would do’ anythin" he possibly could to assist the soldiers. One would, ho said, like to see the most liberal terms given to soldiets for settlement.. He would make . T Inquiry and see what was being done with regard to repayments.

Mr G- W. Lloyd (president of the association) referred to what he called anomalies in the Pensions Act relating to the widows of soldiers, saying that Parliament was under the impression that it was going to cost a considerable amount of money to find these pensions, but it would not do that, because it was simply a continuation of the same pension. , The anomaly lay in the requirement that there should be a prewar engagement to marry. The. reason, as stated at the time by Sir James Allen, was that unscrupulous women were marrying soldiers on their death beds. They had challenged Sir James Allen to prove thati, and no case had been submitted. The War Pensions Board said that on the death of the husband the widow would get nothing. It was wrong to take the pension away when the widow was in need of it. It was not going to cost the country any more. The question would bo submitted to the Minister again as one of the heads of the Cabinet, and he wanted him to look at it in a fair light. There was no such anomaly in Australia, and surely; what was good enough for Australia was good enough for New Zealand,

Mr Forbes promised to bring tho matter under the notice of the Minister of Defence. He could see, he said, that there was a hardship involved.