THE INADEQUACY OF OFFICERS' WIDOWS' PENSIONS. [TO THE EDITOR. OF
THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIL—I wish to invoke the aid of your powerful paper to obtain an answer from the Government to the following questions. How can the widows of officers in the Regular Army live on pensions (the rate of which was fixed when money was worth far more than it was even before the war) under present conditions ? Is it treating them fairly to expect it ? The retail prices of food (I quote from the Times of August 16th) have increased since July, 1914, from 110 to 118 par cent. 1 These pensions have always been inadequate, and it has been almost impossible to exist on them. Now it is quite so. Many of these ladies are no longer young, and it does not seem right that those women who have been left behind by officers who have served their country long and faith- fully should be reduced to straits such as many of them have to contend with now. A General's widow's pension is £120 a year, and of course those of the junior ranks proportionately smaller. Mr. Lloyd George, whose love of justice and whose sympathy are well known, will surely see that this wrong is redressed, and will remember that his dat qui cito dat.—I am, Sir, &c.,
FIAT JOBTITIA.
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