RETURNED SOLDIERS AND THE LABOUR PARTY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23631, 15 October 1938, Page 9

RETURNED SOLDIERS AND THE LABOUR PARTY

TO THE EDITOR g[ r —Perhaps you will grant me a little space to reply to Mr L. L. TaylorCannon. I wonder if he is the person who thought fit to write in a similar manner during the time Mr Coates was in power. Is he in receipt of a good pension. Perhaps if he laid all his cards on the table the public would very quickly realise that he has very little to complain about. Now let me ask him what important matters did the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association bring before the present Government that were refused. The Government refused nothing, and believe me, the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association is quite pleased with itself. Did not the Government abolish the marriage time limit? The National Party was in power for 20 years and refused to grant this piece of human legislation. A sore point with Mr Taylor-Cannon appears to be the restoration in full of the economic pension. Let me tell him that it was his own association that was responsible for the economic pension not being restored, as the Returned Soldiers’ Association of New Zealand advised the Government not to Increase the economic pension. If proof is desired let me quote a statement in the press by the secretary of the Dunedin branch of the Returned Soldiers’ Association: "The New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association did not press the question of economic pensions as we thought the widows and wives of returned soldiers were more important.”—l am, etc., All Quiet on the Western Front