MORE SERIOUS MATTERS

Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1915, Page 6

MORE SERIOUS MATTERS

Sir,—You have dealt editorially with tie Pension Scandal, but does it not make one sick, sad and ashamed to have to read the following?:--"Why is tlie application for a pension for the aged, crippled, and widowed mother of the late Lieutenant Harry Palmer, of Palrnerston North, turned down when she is entitled to it? She has neither home nor friends, Lieutenant Harry Palmer being an only child. At his wish an application was made for tlie old age pension for her, but it was refused on the ground that she had been absent in Australia for a number of years, her son having sent her two years before the war broke out. Lieutenant Harry Palmer gave many years of service in the volunteering for the land of his birth; at last giving his life for King and country, and for this his mother is denied justice, and is left destitute. Can men be expected to recruit with these sad eases in front of tliem?" A pension is now being given when publicity, the only thing that will energise a Government department, has been thrown on thisinhumanity. Also, Sir, you want to deal with the refusal to hand over the pay books of dead soldiers (people are asking why), and the discharging of unhealed wounded soldiers, of which there are some very atrocious cases. Then since we read of 27 millions being collected for war relief and so much of it sticking to the promoters, people want to know now whether their money is going to do any good or not. I waded through the report of the Wellington Conference but beyond a few stereotyped remarks that would do for headlines for copy books, and an undisguised attempt by Ministers to collar the funds, there was not one single business-like suggestion about helping tlie men at the front. It was pot even a display of "masterly inactivity." One very bad feature about most of the patriotic committees is they seem to make no effort to pay out. It may be all right. I don't say it isn't, but I have my doubts, and if any one wants their eyes opened just read what the treasurer of the Wellington Carnival says about so many of the collectors from whom he simply can't get balance sheets. I assure you, sir, it is interesting reading, and it would be more interesting to us subscribers if we were told what £25 motor hire (New Plymouth), £35 (Wanganui) was for, and therefore an exceedingly pleasant contrast was afforded by the Do-it-now style of the Y.M.C.A., who Saturdays ago had their "Rose" day to raise £IOOO for their dining and recreation rooms in Egypt and the front. Seeing in the Post that £SOO was to he cabled to Mr. Jessop, their agent in Alexandria, on the Tuesday following, I said to a friend, "These are the people to support, for I am tired of giving money that I don't know who gets it or where it is going—l refer to patriotic funds, certainly not Serbian or Belgian— because I believe that every penny people get now over pre-war prices is blood money. These inflated prices are raised off the blood ol our sons, and, like ill-gotten gains, will do no good, while many of us have enough sins to answer for without our hands being stained with blood money, so I walked into the Y.M.C.A, office, put down a cheque, and asked them to put it into their Tuesday's cable. Thus three days after people gave their money they knew the boys were getting the good of it. While we hear so much about men getting "Cairoed," is the Government or any patriotic body lifting a finger to stop them ? No; tliey are not. A doctor who has been twice to Egypt said to me in Wellington: "Solve this problem; 5,000 New- Zealand boys land this week, they had a month's thirst on them, pockets full of money, the tropical heat making their blood boil in their veins; thousands of houses selling not liquor but drugged firewater and 40,000 members of the underworld, of whom not 100 could be catalogued in the "above suspicion" class with Caesar's wife waiting with open arms. Well, you must have counter attractions, for remember as Kipling says, "there ain't no Ten Commandments here." Then he showed how the Indian Government kept their men from being "Cairoed" by what some people call the four "C.s." system, but still dining and reading rooms are all that could, be provided, except by the authorities and what happens to the boys' morals doesn't worry them.—l am, etc,. W. R. WRIGHT. Rahotu, December 2. [P.S. —Dunedin Patriotic Committee has just voted £2OOO to be expended by tlie Y.M.C.A. for them. W.R.W.]