THE PENSIONS ACT AND ITS ADMINISTRATION. [TO run EDITOR or
THE " SPECTATOR."]
Bethell's letter and its sympathetic reference to the impending changes in the working of the above must bring hope to many who are apprehensive as to what these changes will bring about. Only those beneath the harrow realize wherein administration has failed to interpret the spirit, I believe, the King's Warrant was conceived in. The credit un- doubtedly given for economies effected is always a danger. It is only exceptionally strong-minded administrators who can stand against it, and there seems to be a difficulty in getting men of sufficiently comprehensive experience to ensure justice being done. It is under the heading of alternative retired pay the greatest hardships are likely to be experienced, for this affects the spider pensioners. Men over forty-fice years, with wives and families, are in a peculiar position when disablement compels them to begin life anew, and this is accentuated when, in the case of men whose pre-war work was overseas, it involve, making a fresh start at linme. A comparatively low medical percentage of disability prohibits a return to a tropical climate, and there are few on medical boards or pension committees wit.) realize what hardship and humiliation this may mean. For these older men time is against them and their case deserves special consideration. They have a bare chance of making good, and, with the cost of living what it is, even the maximum pension means being deprived of much of the comfort their pre-war earnings gave them. With more centralization in administering the Act their case demands watching.—I am,
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