“NOT NIGGARDLY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 96, 14 July 1927, Page 11

“NOT NIGGARDLY”

BRITAIN AND PENSIONS AIDING WAR SUFFERERS ILLUMINATING COMPARISONS British Wireless — Press Assn Cops/right RUGBY. Wednesday. Comparative figures of expenditure ou war pensions by some of the principal belligerent Powers in the late war were given in the House of Commons to-day. when a pensions vote of £57,250.000 for all classes of pensions was under discussion. This amount represents an S per cent, decrease on last year's figure, due to the deaths of pensioners and their dependants, to 60,000 more children reaching the age at which pensions are no longer payable, and t<» the re marriage of a further 4,500 war widows. The total number of pensions now is 1,650,000. The expenditure of the Ministry in 1925-26 was in round figures £66,500.000. The year's expenditure on Great War pensions for the same period in the Dominions of Australia and New Zealand. Canada. South Africa, and Newfoundland was £19,500,000. making a total for the United Kingdom and the Dominions of no less than £s6 millions, equivalent to an annual charge of 27s from every man, woman and child in r. population of 64 millions. In France the expenditure for the same year was approximately £47,750.000, equivalent to a contribution of about ISs 6d a head of its population. The German expenditure for the same year was about £6O millions, which, with a population of 62.500.000. meant a contribution of about 19s 2d a head. The United States expenditure was £46 million, and with a population of 112 millions, this meant contributions of about Ss 3d a head. Discussing these figures. Colonel Stanley, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions, said they were very striking, and showed that the British Empire had not been niggardly in the way it had treated sufferers in the war. Referring to the maintenance of children under the Pension Ministry’s care, Colonel Stanley said £98,500,000 had been spent under this heading since 1917, and the annual expenditure, which was. of course, diminishing, was now -bout £8 millions. The expenditure on the administration of the Ministry of Pensions this year was reduced by 14 per cent., but the expenditure on benefits had fallen by only 35 per cent. —A. and N.Z.