WAR PENSIONS
AUSTRALIAN FIGURES RISING.
£7,762,508 A YEAR
SYDNEY, November 25
Latest Commonwealth figures show that 14 years after the institution of the war pensions system, the number of pensions in force is still rising, and it is admitted by the officials that the peak period cannot be forecasted. This is a serious matter for the Government, for it knows that the public would not countenance for one minute any reduction in the scale of pensions. In the circumstances it is almost impossible for the Government to tell what its obligations are going to be.
On June 30th last there were 279,285 war pensions in force involving an expenditure to the Commonwealth of £7,762,508 as compared with 272,631 and an annual cost of £7,639,814 for the year ended June 30th, 1929. The rapid expansion of the system is shown by comparison with the figures for 1916 and 1924. In 1916 8754 war pensions were being paid, costing £368,800. By 1924 the figures had risen to 236,761 and the cost to £6,915,761. It is apnarent that the war pensions paid to children born of war pensioners are largely responsible for the huge increase in the cost. Of the pensions that are payable at present more than 200,000 are drawn by dependents of pensioners and of deceased members of the Australian Infantry Force. Only 74,578 former soldiers are on the pensions list. There are 65,242 wives and widows drawing pensions, 110,656 children. 7678 widowed mothers, 16,174 by other mothers, 3075 by fathers, 697 by brothers and sisters, and 1185 by “others.” The average rate of pensions per fortnight is £1 17s 9d in the case of war pensioners, and 15s 4d for dependents. Thus 170,437 dependents of war-pensioners and 34.270 dependents of deceased members of th/B( A.I.F. are drawing an average of 15s 4d ewerv fortnight. Tliei-e has not been a single year since the inception of the war pensions system in which the number of pensions has not steadily increased. During the year ended June 30th last, 13,650 new pensions were granted, and only 6442 were cancelled or discontinued. Of the new pensions granted only 1317 went to former soldiers, and 9522 were awarded to children and 2374 to the wives of exsoldiers.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HOG19301203.2.14
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Hokitika Guardian, 3 December 1930, Page 3
Word count
Tapeke kupu
372WAR PENSIONS Hokitika Guardian, 3 December 1930, Page 3
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
The Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd is the copyright owner for the Hokitika Guardian. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of the Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.