H.—2B

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And, using all due diligence, you are required to report to me under your hands and seals not later than the seventeenth day of October, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two, your recommendation on the aforesaid matters. And you are hereby strictly charged and directed that you shall not at any time publish or otherwise disclose, save to me in pursuance of these presents or by my direction, the contents or purport of any report so made or to be made by you. And it is hereby declared that these presents shall continue in force although the inquiry is not regularly continued from time to time or from place to place. And, lastly, it is hereby further declared that these presents are issued under and subject to the provisions of the Commissions of inquiry Act, 1908. Given under the hand of His Excellency the Right Honourable John Rushworth, Viscount Jellicoe, Admiral of the Fleet, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Member of the Order of Merit, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, skat, of the Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief in and over His Majesty's _b__.and. ' Dominion of New Zealand and its Dependencies ; and issued under the seal of the said Dominion, at the Government House, at Wellington, this twenty-sixth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two. R. Heaton Rhodes, Approved in Council. Minister of Defence. F. .1). Thomson, Clerk of the Executive Council.

EEPORT. To His Excellency the Right Honourable John Rushworth, Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, Admiral of the Fleet, G.C.8., 0.M., G.C.V.0., Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief in and over His Majesty's Dominion of New Zealand and its Dependencies. May it please Your Excellency,— We have the honour to report pursuant to the terms of our appointment under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1908, to be a Commission " to inquire into the work ng of the existing legislation with respect to war pensions and the scales of pension thereunder, and to report what amendments (if any) in the said legislation, and what .adjustments or alterations (if any) of the said scales of pension, are, in the opinion of the Commission deemed advisable." The Commission held sittings at Wellington on the 3rd, 4th, sth, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th days of October, 1922, when we heard the evidence of a large and representative body of witnesses, including the Director-General of Medical Services, two other members of the War Pension Board, the Secretary of the Board and Commissioner of Pensions, representatives of various Patriotic Societies throughout the Dominion, representatives of the Returned Soldiers' Association, medical practitioners, and other witnesses, including public men, business men, and social workers. A copy of this evidence is annexed to our report [not printed]. Messrs. D. S. Smith and D. J. B. Seymour appeared as counsel for the Dominion Executive of the Returned Soldiers' Association, and presented a series of claims in respect of which, it was submitted tbe legislation should be amended, and a, large portion of the evidence hereinbefore referred to was called in support of their claims. The following is a detailed statement of their claims, together with a short summary of their arguments in support thereof : —