INADEQUATE SCALE OF BRITISH PENSIONS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 50, 23 November 1918, Page 8

INADEQUATE SCALE OF BRITISH PENSIONS

PROTEST BY DISCHARGED MEN. At a meeting of representatives of the the four Federations of Discharged. and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers held in Sheffield recently a supreme executive to control and direct tho international work of the federation was. set up. Mr. Hoggo, M.P., 'presided. A resolution was carried unanimously Expressing the Supreme Executive's strong disapproval of the proposed increases in. separation allowances to tho dependants of serving men; regards them as wholly inadequate in amount; unfair in their incidence and too long delayed; and calling on the Government at once to revise them and put them in force immediately. Tho Supreme Executive also expresses its sense of the inadequacy of tho existing scale of pensions, and the lack of expedition in tho administration of same by the Minister, of Pensions, and requests the Government at least to revise the scale inwiew of the increased cost of living. Tho executive further desires on behalf of. 1000 branches of .the federation in Great Britain and Ireland to place on record its keen sense of disappointment at the creation by Mr. John Hodge, M.P., the Pensions Minister, of a charitable fund to re-establish discharged meu in business; expresses the firm conviction that this is the duty of the State, and that it neither can or ought to be met from charitable resources; ami calls on tho Prime Minister to abandon the fund, take it out of the handa of any Government Department, and provide from State funds tho necessary money to rehabilitate discharged n.en in civilian life.