NOTES FROM THE CAPITAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1915, Page 3

NOTES FROM THE CAPITAL.

RECRUITING. ! WAR PENSIONS. | (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Dec. 20. Cabinet did not meet to-day, owing to the diisenee of the Minister for Finance (Right Hon. Sir Joseph Ward) and the Minister for Defence (Hon. J. Allen), and the announcement of the new recruiting scheme is further delayed. Sir Joseph Ward has been confined to his room for some days past with a slight throat trouble and probably he will not be able to resume his ordinary round of duties until after Christmas' The De- ; fence Minister has been in Auckland, where the Tunnelling Company on Saturday had its formal parade through the streets to the waterfront. Mr. Allen is expected to be in Wellington again early to-morrow morning, and the Prime Minister indicated this afternoon that lie might be ready to make public the details of the new recruiting scheme after to-morrow's meeting of Cabinet. "In the meantime, the Eleventh Reinforcements are still short," added Mr. Massey, "and the Defence Department is in urgent need of men to fill the gaps, The appeals that have been made within , the last few days have produced a response, but the number of men who have come forward is not large enough." The war pensions system was discussed briefly at a meeting of the Wellington Central Chamber of Commerce to-day and several members urged that the Government should take steps at once to establish the principle of ''pensions by right" as far as wives and children are concerned. At the present time a soldier who returns disabled resnives his pension regardless of any private means that he may possess. But the dependants of a soldier who has fallen have to show the Pensions Board that they have no private means and no adequate earning power before they become entitled to pensions. The rule is not enforced harshly, in the majority of cases, but its existence renders it impossible for the married man to know precisely what his wife and children will receive if he falls, or, indeed, to be sure that they will receive anything at all under the present Act. The definition of dependants in the Act is a very wide one, but the Chamber evidently' recognised that the case of the wife and children is the. really pressing issue,