I suspect, as a matter of fact, that the more
completely you are disabled the nearer you come to getting a square deal. If your injuries are such that you cannot compete at all in the struggle for existence, the authorities provide you with the means to exist. But if you are still in the race the pittance from Whitehall does little to offset the handicap for which it is supposed to compensate you. The following case, which I know of, is typical: X, severely wounded in 1917 and again in 1918, was classed as 4o per cent. unfit in 1919. His category was up-graded to 5o per cent. in 1925 and for the next 21 years he received a pension of LI a week, plus 5s. allowance for his wife. In 1946 his pension was increased to 22s. 6d., the allowance remaining the same. So he now gets 27s. 6d. a week, or exactly to per cent. more than he did in (say) 1938, since when the cost of living has gone up by something like 5o per cent. The fact that the cost of living was also very high in 1919 is neither more nor less relevant than the fact that there is no record of any Disability Pensions at all being granted after Agincourt..
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