EL—2B,

10

in the process of being stabilized the triennium is too long. We favour an annual review based on the average of the monthly prices over the preceding year, and recommend the standard to be taken at the date of the passing of the legislation. R.S.A. Claim 4. — That extra allowances of £10, £8, and £3 in the case of upper-leg, lower-leg, and arm amputees respectively for wear-and-tear of clothing should. be granted. We are satisfied from the evidence and clothing, &c, produced that there is considerable extra wear-and-tear of clothing and foot-wear in the case of leg amputees. A reference to the evidence will fully set out its nature. No detailed account of extra expenditure was supplied, the witnesses all giving estimates ranging up to £18 per annum. We consider that a certain amount of extra expenditure can be minimized in the matter of socks worn on artificial legs. There is great wear-and-tear on these, but this can be obviated as by the provision of canvas soles ; further, there is no real necessity for the sole, as the leg of the sock can be fastened to the artificial limb. We recommend an allowance of £8 and £6 per annum respectively in the case of upper-leg and lower-leg amputees. With regard to arm amputees, the evidence is that artificial arms are seldom used, and we have no recommendation to make. R.S.A. Claim 5. — -An additional travelling medical officer of the War Pensions Board. This has been met by the appointment of Dr. Christie, and we are impressed with its great value, both from the point of view of the individual and the State. An extract from the evidence of Dr. Izard will give an indication of this value: " Dr. Christie saw three hundred cases in three weeks in the King-country, which in medical fees alone saved 150 guineas, apart from what reductions he recommended in the pensions of men whom he saw were overpensioned." This system could be advantageously extended if medical men of sufficient standing and military experience were procurable. The Director-General of Medical Services is in accord with this view. The Director-General of Medical Services is preparing a very full and detailed list of instructions to examining doctors, a draft of which has been shown to us. Attention to these instructions should assist in procuring complete and reliable reports from the examining doctors. R.S.A. Claim 6. — Appeal from any decisions of the War Pensions Board should be provided for. This was urged with very great insistence by counsel for the Returned Soldiers' issociation, and they had the support of various Patriotic Societies throughout the Dominion, representatives of which attended the Commission. The right of appeal is deep-rooted in human nature, and is generally recognized in our administration 7 justice, also in the Civil Service and in other spheres. A War Pensions Medical Appeal Board was created by the Finance Act, 1920, •nd was in active operation for some time, with the following results: Total ppeals, 600; number upheld, 31 ; dismissed, 448 ; reduced, 43 ; made permanent, 5 ; ancelled, 20; appellant did not appear, 53. From this it will be seen that it 7ad a certain usefulness. This Board has not been acting for some time, and is distasteful to the Returned Soldiers- Association, and is viewed with a certain element of suspicion, being regarded as a sort of relation of the Medical Department controlled by the Directorgeneral of Medical Services. This feeling found expression also in Great Britain in connection with an earlier ppeal tribunal set up there, as is evidenced by the following extract from the ensions Report (England) : " Although the Minister accepted the decisions of bat authority, there remained a suspicion that the tribunal was after all merely a anch of the Ministry, and as such was perhaps unwilling to reverse a decision cived at by another branch of the same Department,"