WAY OF THE SOVIET

Southland Times, Issue 20496, 26 May 1928, Page 7

WAY OF THE SOVIET

A WIDOW’S WAR PENSION. NEARLY ALL SUMS RETAINED. Vancouver, May 2. The special Parliamentary Committee on Pensions at Ottawa recently heard an interesting disclosure with regard to pensions paid to dependants of foreign born soldiers. Colonel Thompson informed the committee that money was still being sent by the Pensions Board to Russia, Poland and Latvia. But the chief difficulty with regard to Russia was that, although the money was received by the Soviet authorities, very little of it found its way to the pensioner. In one case- a sum of £l2OO had eben sent, over a period of years, to a widow, but in that time she had received only 3/9. The money was sent to the British Agent in Moscow, who turned it over to the Soviet. That was the last seen of it. The board received assurances from the Soviet Commissars that the pensioner had one house and one pig and was not entitled to any more. It did not occur to the Soviet, said Colonel Thompson, that the money should have been returned to Canada*