"HUMANITY AND KINDNESS " TOWARDS THE DISCHARGED SOLDIER.
(To an Emma or THE " SPECTATOR.")
gia,—In the House of Lords recently Lord Crewe is reported to Have said that discharged men were to be treated, in respect of pensions, " with humanity and kindness." Those who know the actual facts of the condition of many discharged soldiers must feel that, before we can speak of " humanity and kindness," we should fulfil the mere claims of justice. Will you allow me, Sir, to indicate one special point in which the present regulations fail to deal justly with the case of the discharged soldier? I refer to the decisive weight given to the opinion of a medical board which states that a man's disability " has been neither caused nor aggravated by his service." A man entering the Army, or called up from reserve, is described as " fit," sometimes " fit for home service " or " for garrison duty," &c. Then, through a series of months, often nearly two years, he suffers exposure to wet and cold, long hours of work generally, strain and exposure to danger in some form or other, if not in the actual fighting line; his health breaks down, and he is discharged " unfit for service." To any ordinary judgment it is plain that the exposure and hardship must have been at least a contributory cause of the unfitness which follows those conditions; yet for this unfit- ness, often amounting to entire unfitness for civilian work as well, the authorities disclaim, in many cases, all responsibility or obligation. Two cases will illustrate my point.
A. Z. served for more than seven years in the Rifles, was some years in India, where he won a medal. He was discharged "unfit" in 1894. He found work, which he retained for twenty years, under a Borough Council, whose engineer reports thus : " His general health appeared to be very good during his service with the Council, the only sick leave recorded against him being twenty-four days in June and July, 1913." He married an excellent wife, and of twelve children born to the couple eleven are alive and well, the eldest fighting in France, the youngest a baby in arms. He enrolled himself in the National Reserve. He was called up in what is now the Royal Defence Corps, September 3rd, 1914, and was, the same night, put on patrol duty" at the docks. Throughout the winter 1914-15, and part of the next, this soldier, not young, was on night patrol duty. He was discharged, suffer- ing from gastritis, May 23rd, 1916, and pension was finally refused by Chelsea, November 3rd. Since his discharge this man has lived in constant anxiety. He has tried two or three light jobs, but has broken down each time. He is an abstainer, very simple and healthy in his habits. Very likely a substantial temporary pension for himself and his wife and eight dependent children might have enabled him to regain his health and take up work again by now; but in these long months of underfeeding, vain attempts at work, and continual anxiety, it was not possible for him to regain the health he had in 1914. Some help has been given by the local War Pensions Sub-Committee, and a petition for a pension has been sent to the Statutory Committee. If that is refused, no prospect but charity or the workhouse remains for this admirable family, the man now in his fiftieth year.
Another case is that of B. X., a man of forty-seven, who worked for the last few years in the Royal Mint Refinery. He gave up this work in July, 1915, to enlist in the Royal West Kent, under- stating his age in order to be accepted. Of his condition before enlistment his foreman writes: " He was, so far as I know, not subject to any ailment, and certainly did not lose time on that account. On the contrary, he was strong, robust, and capable of doing heavy work." He seems to have had unfortunate experi- ences in camp, in wet quarters. He broke down in the winter, and was finally discharged, very ill, March 31st, 1916. He could not speak above a whisper, and could not walk half a mile without resting. At first, on discharge, he was without any help, and some household treasures found their way to the pawnshop; later he was helped by the Soldiers' Help Society, and then to some extent by the War Pensions Sub-Committee. His excellent wife took in washing, to try to pay for the milk and eggs he was ordered, and nursed him during the months of suffering which ended in his death, September 3rd, 1916. Two days before the end he had a letter from Chelsea, stating that he was ineligible for pension; I did not see the notice—his wife burnt it in angry despair—but no doubt it was the customary statement that his illness was " neither caused nor aggravated by his service." In this case we have reason to believe that a pension of some sort will be eventually granted to the widow and her dependent children, an application having been pressed.
Both these men were simple, independent, hard-working fellows, " no scholar," according to themselves. They and their kind cannot put their own case, and are marvellously patient in their unappreciated suffering. The public must not let them- selves be soothed by the sense of being " humane and kind "; they must examine the facts, and insist, again and again, that justice shall be done to these—who have offered the great sacrifice as truly as any young hero in the trenches.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Bow House, B. MARIAN MACDONALD.
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