VETERANS' PENSIONS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1566, 9 October 1912, Page 5

VETERANS' PENSIONS.

Sir,—l believe (hat the claim cf the veterans of'the Maori ..War to 'a-pension is at last to be considered. Mr. Viiror Brown, M.P., has publicly stated that the Government have a Bill prepared giving them.a-perisioa.ofi.lOs. per week all l-nund. Now, there nre a good many of them well off, and some of them rich, but many-'of them are 1 poor, and'drawing the old-, ago-pension, and if • those who are drawing it are not -permitted to draw both, they will be no better off than they were, and it . will be only, those who do not require it so much, or not at all, that will be benefited. I am a veteran, but not one of the latter ; clas=, yet I think it would be rather "much to exp;ct to get both pensions in full; but I thinkthat those'of the veterans who .can qualify by poverty for the old age pension should bp'permitted .to'get-: a portion of it as well -as, the military pension.. To give them, say, the half, would not be a verv groat concession,- and would bring their pension_ up to about 2s. per day, only about 7(1. per day over what they are receiving 'now as old age pensioners. On the_ other hand, to balance it, the veterans' pension might-very well be reduced to 7s. per week to' those who could not show tbat their income was less than say, £10 a year. There is another thing I wish to caH attention to: it seems the proposed pension is to' a]] veterans, irrespective of the rank they held in the ser■yico they - belonged to. ■■ I think it must bs admitted that thera should be differential scale. Pensions fin every service, whether military, naval, or; civil, are always, on a scale. ' It seems strange to me that an.officer or.staff-sergeant should get just the same pension as a private. Fancy a «P >n the Civil Service getting only the same pension as tho' poorest of his-clerte.-I am, sir, - - A VETERAN. P-S-- Tt "has just .come to my'mind that- the Hon. Sir James Carroll is a veteran, and holds the New Zealand medal, which, to my knowledge, he earned well. But fancy him getting 10s. per -week, and many others beiitg confined (o that amount, and have to live oil it.