The Daily News. SATURDAY, JULY 24, 1915. THE WAR PENSIONS PROPOSALS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 July 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, JULY 24, 1915. THE WAR PENSIONS PROPOSALS.

The iSecret Defence Committee has done good work in revising the scale of pensions to be paid to New Zealand's warriors and their dependeats. The amended scale for New Zealand provides a maximum, allowance of £1 Ms a week tor unmarried private soldiers or able seamen totally disabled as a result of employment in connection with the present war, while the maximum aggregate pension per week in similar cases is now £3. 12s 6d, whereas under the original scheme the rates were only £1 5s and £3 per week respectively. There was throughout the dominion an insistent demand that these pensions should be on I a liberal scale, and the committee, to its credit, has responded by making what must be regarded as adequate provision for all those men who have so readily given their services for the Empire. Commenting on the new proposals, the Dunedin Star says: "It is a pity that the Government has not revealed as clear a recognition of its duty in regard to other, if possibly less pathetic, aspects of military service. Perhaps the Government may yet make reparation for administrative error and delay. The attitude of those members of the Opposition Party who have so enthusiastically advocated a maximum allowance of £2 per week in the ease of the total disablement of an unmarried soldier without military rank is easier to understand than to support. It does credit to their heart and to their clear conception of the hitter hardship of a soldier who, grievously maimed for life, will have to be content with £1 K>? per week, without the prospects of securing the social and domestic happiness of some very patriotic, expensively educated shirker, who may have seized the "billet" of the incapacitated soldier, while the latter was scrambling on the smoking hills of Gnllipoli, beset with shrapnel and menaced by de.ith everywhere. But even that bitter aspect (which is inevitable in countries where conscription terrifies politicians) does not overoome the serious question oi -providing financial means of supplying exceptionally generous pensions for heroic men.'' Most people will heartily endorse this view of the matter, although, as the Defence Minister has pointed out. the country will probably be faced with an annual expenditure of a million sterling, but it is hardly likelv that such a «,„„ will dismay thep'atriotic taxpayers. The hearts of tihe people of New Zealand are o,ien to the great duty imposed on the dominion in connection with the war. We recognise that there must be borrowing and taxation to meet the inevitable liabilities, and yet, instead of fearing the burden, there is! a disposition to increase it, so that our- 1 aid to the Motherland may be as generous as our patriotism is deep. This is no party question; it is a national duty, and both the House and the committee haw risen to the occasion in such a way as not only to earn the approbation of (he country, but to uphold its honor and humanitarian instincls. Apart from the pensions scheme, there will doubtless be other dc"li'ii'ls on the State, a.s well -as on private liberality, but whatever there may be they will be cheerfully met, for NewZealand may be relied 0 n to do all that is just and fair during the war and after. There will be m , half-measures, and no niggardliness, nor are"-the wage-earners likely to have their burdens increased, while whatever sacrifices are necessary will be accounted a pleasure and a privilege.