WAR PENSIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1915, Page 3

WAR PENSIONS.

THE CLAIM OF THE WIFE. COMMERCIAL MEN DEMAND AMENDMENT OF ACT. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Dec. 21. At a meeting of the Wellington Central Chamber of Commerce to-day, the President (Mr. C. M. Luke) reported regarding the recent deputation to the Prime Minister on the subject of war pensions. He said that it did not appear to him that the Right Hon. W. F. Massey had covered the ground adequately in his reply to the representatives of the War League. There was a demand throughout the country for the more liberal treatment of the dependants of men who had fallen at the front, and , particularly of the wives and children. Mr. L. A. Edwards said it seemed to him that the Prime Minister had evaded the essential point. Tf a man went to the front he knew exactly what he would receive by way of pension if lip returned totally disabled. But he did not know what his wife and children would receive if he were killed, since the War Pensions Board had the right to take into consideration the earning capacity of the wife and any private means that she might possess after the liquidation of her husband's estate. The demand of the country was that the pensions of wives and children should be payable by right. Mr. Luke said that the list of dependants had been made very wide under the Act. Tt included all sorts of relatives and connections, and there seemed to be a danger that the wife and children would be made to suffer through being associated under the Act with dependants who had not the same intimate claim. Mr. H. G. Hill, President of the Patritic Society, said that now was the time to press the matter upon the attention of the Government. The settlement of the just claims of the soldiers should not be left until after the war, when enthusiasms might have chilled. He had travelled about New Zealand and discussed the pensions system with representatives of patriotic societies and many other people. He was satisfied from what he had seen that the community was firmly of opinion that the pensions should be paid to wives and children by right, and that New Zealand must pay the bill, whatever it might be. He suggested that the various organisations which had concerned themselves about the matter should unite in order to place a definite statement of their wishes before the Prime Minister. Mr. Edwards: He would not read it. He did not read the War League's letter.

Mr. Hill added that there was a feeling through New Zealand that the Government was trying to use the patriotic funds for providing relief of the kind that should come from the ordinary State revenue. As one of the trustees and as a man who had helped to raise the money he was going to protest to the last against any diversion of the money from its proper purpose, that was, the supplementing of the State grants in order that the men and their dependants might have something more than bare necessaries.

Mr. Luke said there was no doubt that the patriotic funds had been intended to supplement the pensions and not to provide any part of the ordinary expenditure in connection with the soldiers. The men had been told that the money subscribed by the public would be used to ensure that their dependants had something added to the State pensions, which should be large enough to provide necessaries.

A motion moved by Mr. Hill that f he Chamber should co-operate with cth;r bodies in urging tills matter upon the Government, was carried.