GOVERNMENT SPENDING DEPARTMENTS. [To TIM EDITOR or TIM " SPIOTAT011.1
Sin,—The letter of " W. M. G." in your issue of the 23rd inst. has struck me as applying forcibly to the Statutory Committee under the Naval and Military Pensions Act. The regulations of the Committee appear to be based on the " principle that men are either knaves or fools." Its " system leads to no one being able to do anything without the authority of some one else," and so "there must be form upon form." The Soldiers' and Sailors' Help Society worked the scheme for the relief of the men under the National Relief Fund most efficiently for eighteen months, but under the complex system of regulations and accounts devised by the Statutory Committee, which leave nothing to the " judgment and honour " of its members, it will not be possible for it to carry on, and it will have to be replaced by a small army of Government officials throughout the kingdom. I venture to ask you to insert the following motion which was passed at a meeting of the Surrey County Committee of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Help Society, which was held on the 23rd inst., General Sir Edmond Elks presiding, and to give it the support of your influential paper :—
" This Committee is of opinion that the many difficulties and delays in regard to pensions being awarded, and the great hardships inflicted on the men thereby, can only be obviated by the Government not discharging men until (a) their accounts have been settled up ; (b) their pensions have been fixed by the Chelsea Commissioners. Further, that if a conditional pension is changed by the Commissioners, the old pension should be continued until the new one actually comes into effect. This would obviate broken periods during which no pension at all is paid, causing great hardship."
Hon. Secretary Soldiers' and Sailors' Help sodety, W. Buns:- Bkorlheath Lodge, Farnham.
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