WAR AMPUTEES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25135, 28 January 1943, Page 6

WAR AMPUTEES

QUESTIONS OF PENSIONS REPLY TO R.S.A. At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Dunedin Returned Services’ Association on November 9, it was decided to request the Otago and Southland War Amputees’ Association to withdraw its condemnation of the Dominion Executive for lack of appreciation of the pensions’ claims of war amputees. A letter from the Returned Services’ Association, together with a copy of the report of the Pensions Sub-committee of its executive, came before the War Amputees’ Association at a meeting on Tuesday night, and the chairman, Mr Charles E.*H. Wilson, was instructed to reply to the Returned Services’ Association as follows: “ My committee approves of the report of its delegates to the annual conference of the New Zealand War Amputees’ Association in 1942, and sees no reason why the passage in the report objected to by your committee should be withdrawn or require a rebuttal. Had my committee published the full evidence of the manner in which the Pensions Sub-committee of the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association disregarded the direction of the annual conference of the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association to investigate the claims of the war amputees and how they callously threw out the whole of the requests at a luncheon sitting without calling any evidence whatsoever, the result would have been, to say the least of it, very damaging to the reputation of the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association. “ My committee desires to point out that there was a definite request made to the full conference of the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association by the amputee representatives to investigate their claims and approach the Minister of War Pensions to have* the anomalies rectified. That the claims had merit and were justified, and had the support of the conference, was evident by the ovation the amputees’ representatives received at the conclusion of their addresses. In view of that alone, the subsequent actions of the Pensions Sub-committee and the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association Dominion Executive deserved the strictest censure. The fact that the proposals for the increased pensions, etc., were rejected at subsequent conferences of the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association is not evidence of the proposals being unworthy of support, DUt is very, real evidence of the foolishness of placing before laymen matters with which they are not conversant, and the harm which can accrue from immature judgment due to lack of knowledge and evidence.

“We have no doubt whatsoever that had the full facts been placed before the Pensions Sub-committee of the 1940-41 conferences the findings would Have been in each case quite different. The failure of the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association over the years to accept readily and lend its assistance to amputees’ requests, and more recently tha same tendency on the part of your own committee, is having unpleasant repercussions, and can only end in unfortunate results.

“In view of this, and in view of the fact that members of your committee cannot have any conception of the problems we have had to face in the past, at the present, and will have to face in the future, with the new amputees returning, my committee tenders to your committee an invitation to meet representatives of my .committee at an early date.”