WAR PENSIONS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2779, 25 May 1916, Page 7

WAR PENSIONS

A PLEA FOR-PRUDENCE

BY FINANCE MINISTER

The debate . on the War. Pensions Amendment Bill was resumed) Mr. •A. ■ H. HINDMAESH' (Wellington South) said he was sorry that the Bill did not provide for. some comprehensive .scheme for the payment of-the. pensions. By and by there would be an agitation to pay pensions to -all soldiers who had' fought in the war. ' He said that it was no more thai prudent that we should set about' creating a fund by taxation or otherwise to. assure the pensions. The war profits ought ; to be .absorbed as a first measure.,, He advocated an increas-•ed-rate of pension to children. SIR JOSEPH WAED (Minister of Finance) .said he wished to say something about the Very important Bill betore, the House, a Bill which had been, very carefully considered by the National Ministry. Every member of that Ministry was anxious to do as much as possible for the soldiers going to the war and their dependants. Regarding the taxation of war profits, he said that honourable membors seemed to forget that Avar. profits 1 would not last for the life fame of any soldier, ' and to 'attempt. -to. base taxation for ; war pensions upon var profits would be a very unsound system., No man could say what'the charge upon the State under the present scale, or the proposed more liberal scale, would' bo until after the 'war,-- when, it' could ba ascertained what the number-of pensioners and. their children-was likely, to'be. It would hot be long before, the Financitl Statement-was,before'the House,,and then honourable members ivould see the many-sided questions'/,of '.'finiiiico .facing this country. Two items alone' in the expenditure for this year which had nothing to do with or with soldiers' sickness amounted to one million, and this ■ for only a coniparatively small' part of what the country required to do. At least, GO .or 70 times tho iimount now being' paid for pensions would yet have to be paid. ..Only about $100 iuen had' yet come back. At least, the extra charge would be forty times tho ■£93,000 now paid. . Mr. Poland: Oh, no, twelve times.

No Man Can Tell. Sir Joseph Ward said that no one was' to say that tho Defence Minister's estimate of; a million was wrong. And even if. the amount reached a million no one. would say that it. was too much for the' country to pay. Great fighting was yet to come. The British offensive had not yet begun, but it was coming," and no one ttould tell what: the losses in killed and wounded would be. ' He' urged honourable members to agree to fix the pensions now at as liberal a" rate as now Bfcdmed safe, having in blind, the, possibility of reviewing tho rates after the war, when we could know what our 'resources would be', and what our liabilities would be. .It was all very well to say" "double all the pensions," but honourable members should recollect that it would not be a wise thing, to establish pensions on a basif tliat oonld not be maintained after th<j war. If the war elided soon conditions would change, and •wo might-give bigger pensions'. -If the' war should go on two years longer, it ■would. not be easy to keep up even tha present rates. He contended, also, that honourable members were confused in thoir minds between pension and 'wages. -The demand for pensions, based on rates of iwages was fallacious.- It was'wrong it;, place before tha men of ,jfew Zealand the idea.that our country or any country in the world could pay/pensions based <m the ruliug rates of wages. This country could'not stand pensions at such a rate. Tho Government was not in a tuition to give a definite basis, a close estimate, of what our obligations in .connection with tho war /were likely to be, because no one knew when, the war would end. . Financially, we were .remarkably strong, and this was a very fortunate thing for the country, but now when we had a big increase of exports as compared with pre-war times, it-seemM easy to be generous.' But after- tlie war there would be an-altered'condition of, things, and if tvo, incautiously heaped up our obligations now, it might be that our- 1 taxation would have to:be so heavy as to strangle somo of our .industries. Injury done to cur industries would re-act upon all classes of tho community, and would-at length *lTeot the workers, most seriously-of all. Air. Brown: Can t you tax accumulated .veal th ? ■ Sir-Joseph Ward : Wait,until the Financial Statement comes down, and you will ?ee what we proposo. He added that any scheme for taking \all the wealth or half tho wealth of the people of. the country would at once produce chaos and disaster, The Reasonable Thing. Mr. G. J. ANDERSON (Mataura) urgctl that tho Government should move-to delete from the Bill the , clause requiring a Ppli9ations to be made for pensions within six months of tho date of disrhaige. He did. ziot believe in pensions by right. This was going altogether too far, He would like to see pensions granted as of right to all persons getting in. comes of less than .£3OO, or at most .£SOO, » year. But it was absurd to pay pensions to people with incomes of J2IOOO or .62000 a year. -..

Sir. L. SI. ISITT (Christchurcli North) believed that it was the wish of the people that Parliament should err on tho «de of generosity rather than that it should 1)0 guided by a cold, calculating prudence. Our pensions scheme was the most liberal ever devised. But before we conld plead that ivo could not afford to give more than 255. a week to the widow of the man who died for us, wc must ■begin to practise economy. We ,could afford to spend four millions a year on drink, four millions a year on racing, ou.r picture theatres wore 'full every night. Why not tas amusements? Tax them remorselessly. He was not of those who condemned the Government for not paying eur soldiers enough. It was a gross misrepresentation to compare the rate of ss. b day paid to soldiers with the wages

paid to workers. The worker got only his wages. Tho soldier got is. for keven days a- week, was fed and clothed, and had his every expense met. Ho would not he glad to see the rate of pay .of five shillings a week to the unmarried soldier' increased. He ' deprecated very stropgly tho claim made that tho workers were tho only men making sacrifices in this war. Rich men were - making saorifices just as readily. Ho did not think it was doing justico to the workers to suggest that they would be in-, flucnced in their decision as to whether' they would go' to the war or not by tho rates of pay offered them. He was proud to say that tho workers had responded nobly in this war. ' Ho urged that at least the pension to the widow should be increased above 255., an'd that tho allow-ance-to her children be increased from ss. to Is. 6d. or. even 10s. When tho Bill got into 'Committee he would ho found among those-who were asking not for tho mad thing or .the extravagant thing, ■ but.for such reasonable liberality as he believed, ought to be shown. ..- i Mr. T. A. H. FIELD (Nelson) urged „ that.the rate of/pension to widows should be increased to 305., and fto children to 10s. 'ft week. He said that the Government had not_ resolutely tackled the' problem of raising revenue by taxation in order to meet the pensions liability. Mr. J'.- PAYNE (Grey Lynn) doffed at tho talk of prudence, and suggested a series of Socialistic schemes for rawing the wind. . The Prime Minister. The. Right Hon; -W. l r . MASSEY said that thfe Minister of Defence had no reison to Complain.of the reception of his Hill.. Tho members of the Government were just its anxious ' to do their duty tor the men and their dependants as private'members were. .But «-hey could-not forget'that in this crisis they, had very serious responsibilities. Thoy iiad to look forward "to, tho time uhen the war would bo over, and when men would be coming back and expecting positions. There would no no war profits, and we would have.to pay as we weiit. That was tho time we' had to prepare for, but lie was glad-to 1 ' Buy that some such preparations had already been made.. He ha a seen that night a'letter from an officer which said that the war would' end >two -years from .next ,November. He hoped that was' a pessimistic; view,- but we were oound to prepare. It would not be long before our.' war expenditure would amount to £'1,000,000 a'lnohth, and the country had to prepare to meet that ium'> and providu sinking funds, etc. .He remembered tno time whin' New fiefllarid suffered from crisis in the. time,of Sir Harry Atkinson, and lie did not want to see a repetition of that time. 'Iliey had to place Upon the Statute' Book a pension schemewhich ujould stand'the strain of any depression which might come in tho future, fie hojled arid behaved that full justico woulu be done to the men who were 'lighting tor their country. Those liven were not fighting for money, but yere 1 fighting for the Empire and the • country. . Tne present Bill was undoubtedly a, great/ improvement' upon that, of last year?. . Mr. Witty : ;It .was what we asked for last yeat.i ' ' • : Mr. I 'Massey. I am not ,at all sure as to that. I have. ..Some quotations here which ;I: shall read. -,The Bill, he continued, provided pensions by right to the wife' and; child, but' not so much was heartrnow as to the pension by right for dependants. , There were, however, £wo sides'to the question of pensions' by Tight. ' It'-' was.'.certainly the case that if a-pension were given to a well-to-do widow', then iii the"'time of depression there would bo less for the poor. Board is Necessary.

-, .A suggestion had been made that the .Pensions Board should be done away with.: This could not bo done. .Tho board 'was necessary. -..He. refuted the claim made by for Ohine-' muri that-there was' nothing in the .Bill which had not been asked for in Parliament. ; Pensions by right were not asked d'Or •' last' year. ' ■ The compromise of 355.' arrived, at; was. a'very, good one indeed.! . Allowances had been .discussed. .A man with a wife and five children received.i total of 19s. Gd., .which, giving the soldier 7s. * a -week pocket-money, lelt. the -faiiuily £2 12s. Gd., which ; was better, than was, given . by any ..other* State. .. . , ' " „ • Mr.' Poland:. It 'will be beaten shortly.' Mr.„Mas3ey:.No; New' Zealand will lead." Tho incapacitated man, he said, received a'pension of 355., his wife 125.. 6d., arid» his five children ss. each, making a' total-of-,£3 12s. 6d., which seemed a vory respectable!total indeed. He contrasted the present proinsion with* that made at the conclusion of the Boer War, when 15s. 2d. a week was provided for the incapacitated man. It was incorrect to say. that 'the pension, was either niggardly or parsimonious. He held the opinion that'.- what had been done was creditable to New Zealand. The member for Ohinemuri had express-' ed-tho opinion that a , totally incapacitated .-private 'should receive the 6ame pension as that of an officer. The logical conclusion was that the pay should be the' same.; , T Mr. Poland: X did not claim that. I claiurcd that the widow o£ a private , should receive as much as that of the widow of an officer. Mr. Massey . quoted a numbeif of opinions of approval-of: last year's Bill, expressed by members who this, yoar criticised the measure. Contrasting criticism of the* ss. a week allowance per. child with the provision made under tho Widows' Pension Bill—2s.. 4d., u -week per childMr. Massey said 'that- at least this Bill represented a. tremendous ' advance. If the .-country could afford more, no one would be better pleased than he. But if, 1 they were going to meet their liabilities and maintain prosperity they must avoid increasing taxation in the way demanded ,by°'6ome members. • Ths fcoggestion that this Pensions.. Bill should apply to the South African veterans,.'.was a new one, and . was niade possibly for a set purpose., i The couritr/s first duty, howover, was to theimen in'the present iyar. The removal of- the age liinit upon the parents of deceased or disabled soldiers | was a very great concession. . Tho Billi as a • whole, was a great improvement on. last year's measure, and he hoped that when the warwas over still greater improvement would l j b'p made. • . , I

| ■ , Other Speakers. Mr. G. WITTY (Riccarton) pointed out that-as soon as tho war was over, pensions would have reached their height, and would thereafter drop rapidly as children would !'be reaching the age oflfi, and hot. requiring'"the pension. He hold that war' profits, should bo taxed heavily for the s'aW of' the pensions. Each sol-' dier's pension'should be ,£2 and the wife' 6 30s. per week-. Ho held that the Goveriv' merit from the start .should have insured each 1 , man for, ,£IOO, and if ho returned alive hand.'him the policy .-to be' continued. ''■■■• ■ Mr. A. HABR-IS (Waitemata) agreed that there,was. .a strong feeling for liberality towards tho men, and Parliament should meet that desire on' tho part o( / the country.- But they had to look to tho' future 'and avoid being carried by sentiment, further . than common-senso could support.them;- ■ The debate , was continued by Messrs. W. A. Veitch, R. P. Hudson, H. G. Ell, Ai Walker) and'J. M'Combs. ', • The Minister's Reply. The Hon. J. ALLEN replied at 1 a.m.,: stating'at the outset that the criticism a's a wholo had been very, fair, indeed. He referred to a number of special cases and questions raised by individual members. Discussing the objection of tho member for Matauraito-the indiscriminate granting of pensions by right, he said that lie had suggested when he moved the second leading that the pension should be granted in full 'by right to widows with a certain maximum , income, and that the Board should be, entitled to take the applicant's income into consideration in assessing tho pension if that fixed amount of income, should' be exceeded. Perhaps when tho Bill was in Committee somo amendment to this effect might lie made. He had been accused of giving an extravagant estimate of tho total pensions chnrgo likely to accrue in New Zealand. His estimate was based oil an actuary's calculation for an army of 50,000 in a two years' war, reckoning ■on per cent, of death casualties, admittedly a very high estimate. - He did not consider tho complaint against tho allowance of as. per week for children was justified. It was not fair to single out one item in the pensions schedule and say it was not fair. One should take into consideration all the - payments to tho other lc-ass of pensioners. If this were done our Acl would be seen to bo Letter than any other.' The second reading was agreed to on the voices. The House rose at 1.15 am