Sir L. Worthington Evans, the Minister of Pensions, told the
House of Commons on Thursday week that he would carry out the recommendations of the Select Committee, with one vital exception. The pension rates, he said, would be increased, so that the total cost -would rise to £90,000,000 a year. An applicant whose claim to a pension had been rejected would have the right to appeal. to an independent Tribunal, to be eat up by statute. But the Minister refused to confer on the disabled soldier a. statutory right to a pension. The sailor's pension, according to Judge Parry, is based on statute. But the soldier depends for his pension on the terms of a Royal Warrant— thetas, on the arbitrary will of the Executive ;-therefore, as the Court of Appeal decided in 1891, he has no legal remedy if his pension is wrongfully withheld. If Sir L. Worthington Evans is prepared to give the disabled soldier a right to appeal to a special Court, he might just as well go a step further and place the pension on a statutory basis. This will have to be done sooner or later. The expenditure involved is too great to be kept beyond the purview of the ordinary Courts.
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