EX-SOLDIERS

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3182, 26 May 1932, Page 2

EX-SOLDIERS

DISABLED BY WAR SERVICE. Unemployed ex-soldiers of the New Zealand Expeditionary, Australian Imperial, South African,) and British Imperial forces and members of the Royal Navy who are in receipt of , a war disability pension, met in the Returned Soldiers' Association rooms last night (says the Otago Daily Times) to voice a protest against the treatment of their pensions as income. Mr P. S. Anderson, president of the Returned Soldiers' Association, occupied the chair, and there were about 100 ex-soldiers present. The chairman said that the meeting had been called in order to place before them just what the executive of their association was doing in connection with trying to get some alteration made, so that the pensions of ex-soldiers suffering from a war disability should not be treated as income. The matter had first been taken up seriously in December of last year, when a deputation from the local association had waited on the Prime Minister in Dunedin and explained the position to him. The deputation had been well received, and they had been led to understand that something would be done. They were now into May, a sheaf of correspondence had passed, but they bad got no further. Recently they had I suggested that a deputation from the. Auckland,! Wellington, Christchurch, and Otago Associations should go to Wellington and put the position before the authorities there. They had received replies from some of the associations and also from the headquarters of their association. However, the annual conference of the the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association would be held in Wellington next month, and it was considered that in all the circumstances it would be better, and it would carry far greater weight, if the conference took action. The conference, he could assure them, would do its best to get to some finality. The Dunedin executive, said the speaker, had strong views on the matter. They considered that it was an injustice that a man who received a war disability pension should have that pension taken into account when, he was being allotted work under the 1 No. 5 unemployment scheme.

Mr J. McNish said that there were some of the men there that night who were not allowed to work at all under the No. 5 scheme, because of their pensions.

The 'chairman asked any of the men present who might be so affected to stand up, and a number did so. The chairman said that an ex-sol-dier was being placed in a worse po-

sition than a civilian. A civilian had no war disability, and he got his full period of work under the No. 5 scheme. Their executive was strongly of opinion that a man's war disability pension should not be taken into account when the period of work to which he woud ordinarily be entitled under the No. 5 scheme was being considered. A member of the audience said that in some districts a man's disability, pension was not taken into account. He mentioned Palmerston North as one place. The chairman said that the local Unemployment Committee had put the position before the Unemployment Board in Wellington. The local committee had tried to have the matter fixed up immediately it knew about it. The matter would have to be adjusted in Wellington. He understood that legislation was not necessary to have the position altered—it was a matter for the Unemployment Board in Wellington. They would have the backing of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association in their action, and it was a backing of some strength. Five years ago the membership of the association was 6000—to-day it was 12,000. It was stated that both Mr Coates and Mr Downie Stewart were personally in favour of a disability pension not being treated as income. Mr Coates had said it was a matter for the Unemployment Goard. The speaker further said that apparently it was the Unemployment Board in Wellington which was the stumbling block.

The chairman said that the soldiers could rest assured that the executive of the Dunedin Association would do its very best to have the anomaly removed. It would be brought up at the conference in Wellington, and they hoped that some finality would be reached. The following motion was carried unanimously:—" That this meeting of disabled soldiers in receipt of pensions emphatically protests against ex-servicemen being penalised for relief work, under the No. 5 scheme, because they are in receipt of pen* sions."

A vote of thanks was also passed to the executive of the local association and the chairman for calling the meeting.