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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1930-04-17, Page 2Sir Arthur Currie Asks Improvement In Pension System Almost Impossible to Prove Disability Due to War Service MANY DISSATISFIED Ottasva,-With Sir Arthur Currie • and a large delegation of the Can- adian Legion present at the first busi- ness meeting of the Pension Connnit- tee last week, an 'overcrowded attend- ance necessitated a move to the largest room in the House. A senatorial committee was present to watch the proceeding and avoid duplicate of effort when the bill goes to the' Upper House, Col, Lefieche, head of the Canadian Legion, asked •,a hearing for Sir Arthur Currie. Chair- man. Power invited the commander of the Canadian Corps in the war to give his views on the legislation, Sir Arthur expressed his apprecia- tion of• his consideration of the pre- sent and past committees on pensions. 'He regretted that after 11 years there was still an urgency for the further consideration of soldiers'.; problems. The feeling was widespread that the obligaitons of the country toward the returned men had not been fulfilled as they should be. INTERESTED IN VETERANS He was profoundly interested in tho men, whops he knew and with whom he served. He knew their strength and their weakness, knew how they bore themselves in battle; knew their pride in themselves and their faith in each other. However, he did not appear solely as a representative of the men who served at the /"rant. The returned men were as much concern- ed in the welfare of the country as any other group. They did nor wish to add one unnecessary cent to the burden of the country. It was Only a question of setting up the machinery to fulfil the intentions of the people of the country. The returned soldiers thought only as the public thought. It was now almost inipossiele, Sir Arthur said, for the applicant in many cases to prove "hat his disability was due to war service. Sir Arthur did not speak for any malingerers in the war, but only for the deserving. He did nor appear io snake any destructive criticism, but showed a desire to help out the com- mittee in its problems. He went on to outline broadly the British pension system based ou a con- tract. It helped their morale to knew that their dependents would be looked after and a pension would go with eny dis- ability.. NO FAULT WITH SCALE . "We can find no fault with the Can- adian scale of pensions; it is higher than that of any country I know," de - eland Sir Arthur, who said the Pen- sion Board, in applying the act, was a court of law and equity. Many thought the machinery was not Sanc- tioning properly and it was tar the committee to find out why. One dis- satisfaction arose from the fact that the Pension Act is a legal document. Many applying for a pension were net aware of this, while people why were not entitled to it often applied. It would be better if, when a pension is rejected, the applicant should be told why, Failure to de ..o fired .1i,:snt.s- faction. Dissatisfation also arose ever tine award of disability. for e emp.e, lit per cent. being allowed, When a high- er award to claimed, it was often • physically impossible to peepare Ye ease as the forms Balled rare. A man should have asistenee hs pec ring his case. "I ani not coty;need the; iite.a- cifers advisers do their wcrit as thee- should. heyshould. I think the service» . f tae Canadian Legis.n sii uld be utilized." DIFFICULTY IN MACHINERY Sir Arthur vented the difecuity does not arise in the net itself but in the machinery for the administration of the act. It needs revision and re- newal, he said, pointing out the cifii- culty of the board at times .n inter- preting such things as attributithili:y, Sir Arthur described the case o a man who was really ill but i :sieted en staying in service nevertheless. Afterwards he developed sciatica, and got a $6 pension. I'•inaliy, wlien the case was diagnosed as arthritis, the pension was out off. He has ie drag himself about to look after the chickens that provide him with the means of a living. Not a man in this country will say that this wee was fairly dealt with. The Soldiers' Allowance Bill, in his opinion, was social legislation which ought not to be administered by the Pension Board. If it went there, many a person entitled to a pension would be put off by it. The age should be 60 not 65. When a ntan, with such an allowance died it should be kept up for his widow and children for at least a year. He also expressed the epinion that in the tomnnittec achnin- istering the allowances there should be one or two experieuced men awl a representative of the legion, EASIER APPEALS URGED • , In' all eases an appeal to the appeal beard from the Pension Board sbould be possible. In conclusion; Sir Arthur reiterated that he did not wish to make everyone a potential pensioner or to add unnecessarily to the ttirden of taxation. IIe sai<1 that the pe'blem was largely one of interpreting the act and, providing' it with the neces- sary machinery. Sir Arthur thought The personnel of the Pension Board ought to be i screws-' ed and it should be made an itinerant body. e To Chairman Power, Sii•Art'nur re- iterated that he did not believe in hav- ing the act "wide open" so that every- one could bea potential pensioner. He will return for examination ,after the Legions' views have been presented. .Col. Lafieehe of the Canadian Le- gion stated that for the first time all the soldiers'• organizations appeared as one body. He spoke of the desir- ability of speedy action by Parliament hi the final disposition of the ,case. Regarding the onus of. proof, Cola Lafieche stated that without actually putting it in the law and perhaps paving the way to the payment of "two or three billion dollars," the returned men demand "the substanee of the benefit of .doubt," in all applications for pentons on the ground of their attributability to war service. The committee was also addressed briefly by COL Wood, president- of The Canadian Army and Navy Vet - e]. ane, and Capt. Rev. Sydney Lambert of the Amputation Association, who both expressed appreciation of the work of the present and previous com- mittees. 'Chubby" Power, the chair - can, and Col. Lafieche, who "knows his business;' were praised: Ex -Soldier Finds Nurse After Ten Years Brighton -After a ten year's search a Brighton man has found the pretty war -time nurse whose careful and de- voted nursing probably saved his life when he was wounded during the war. The other day he was admitted into a private nursing home for an operation for appendicitis. The nurse who attended him was the girl who served in the war hospital, The an• nouneement of their marriage has just been made. Mr. James Speigliton, a London business man living in Brighton, told nye the romantic story of the Happy finish to his long quest. Her Devotion "I was pretty badly wounded with a piece of shell in the back and was In- valided borne to England in a serious ,Condition," lie stated, "My_ night nurse was a pretty girl and we soon became firm friends. "One night I reached a crisis and It was torch and go whether 1 would pull through. It was only her de- voted nursing that saved' my life. "I got better and was removed to another 'hospital. WS v..l'esponded for a time and then I was passed fit for duty again and rejoined my regi- ment." When he came out of the Army mfr. Speighton attempted to end the nurse and advertised in several newspapers for news of her. Finally he learned that she had gone abroad in the capa- city of nurse to an Inland. "I had given ftp all hope of ever finding her again when I was admit- ted into the nursing house at Brigh- ton," he said. "You can imagine my surprise when the nurse cane in and I discovered it was she. -We were not long in making up our minds to get married and as soon as I am fit again we intend to cele- brate the wedding:' The Civilian and The Next War "We :taw. seen that military opinion Is meting tine point that modern teem lions are most effective when directed, not against the enemy's army only, but against the heart of his nation," 'Writhe els C. P. Straeey in the Queen's. Querieriy, "Ami if war is allowed to break out enee more the intending .lotions may eertailily be expeted to ase their weapons in the Wiest .reeilve manner Possible. "Those who expect 111e civilian to o scot-free in a possible encounter. between Great Powers in the future Weald do well to consider an ohserva- tionmade e year or two ago by a most disingniehetl British general of- fieer, in the course of a lecture on modern tendencies in military theory delivered to a group of English under- graduates: 'Weil, gentlemen, in wars up to the -present time the civilian has gone out on the pavement and cheer- ed as the troops marched away, and then he has gone in and broken the top off his egg and read all about it in the newspapers. Well. gentlemen, he's never going to do it again:" "In the event of the statesmen of the world failing to avert another great war, It is probable that that summation of the natter will prove to be high n emote:" "What is yonr, boy ]earning et col- lege?" "I. don't know. I can only tell yon what he is studying." New British Ambass•sdor Calls On Hoover SIR RONALD LINDSAY PRESENTS LETTERS OF CREDENCE AT WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON The photograph here shows a scene at the White House, Washington, D.C., recently wlien Sir Ronald Lindsay, new Britisb ambassador to the United States, Balled to present his lettere-et credence to President Hoover. Left to Rigbt; Capt. Allen Buchanan, Sir Ronald Lindsay anti Francis White of the state department, War Secrets Revealed by U -Boat King 198 German Submarines that. Did not Come Back -Yost by Mines, Gunfire -Lost in. Nets Every German submarine wbich put to sea in the war years of 1915.18 owed its equipment and a large part of its fighting efficiency to a grey- haired, broad -shouldered man who sat the other night in the lounge of a Lon- don hotel. He was Captain Gustave Luppe, formerly Senior Staff Officer in the Department of Submarine Operations, In charge of personnel and replace- ments. Captain Limps is no longer a Ger- man naval officer with a high com- mand; he is now a commercial man engaged in negotiations with a group of English friends, but he carries in his memory more secrets of the inten- sive submarine warfare against Eng- land than any other German living, Six Months' Training N"o one in your country -or or in Germany for that matter,' he said to a representative, "has any real idea of the difficulties under which we la- bored to keep our submarine warfare in force. "We Iost in all 19S U-boats, What happened to many of them we never knew, They 111 not come back, that was all. They were lost by mines, by gunfire, in nets -in a variety of differ- ent ways, "And as beet we could we built to replace oar losses, but from 1916 on- wards we were building with indiffer- ent material -material which was of- ten makeshift. As the material fell away from the first class, so did our men. "Towards the enol of the war we were training crews in six months-- altogether onths-altogether too short a time, Our sub- marines then were of such a class that after a mouth at sea they needed two months for refit and repairs. "Thus, altogether at one time we had a total of 300, we never had more than 100 in readiness. "We were short of torpedoes, short of everything. Our requirements in orpedoes at one period were 180 a week, We could not find that num- ber. I remember I had to go to Aus- tria to try to borrow torpedoes. "The Austrian Navy used only fifty- seven torpedoes during the whole tours° of the war, but even so they were never able to provide us with any for our submarines, • "Why, when we sent four small sub- marines to Poland in sections for the use of the Austrian Navy we had to send our own workmen to put them together! We had to send food from Germany for our German workmen in the Austrian dockyards. The Aus- trians would never provide them with rations. Even when the submarines were built, the Austrian Navy never took diem out against the enemy. They lacked the nerve. Canada's Lumber Industry -mtine e1i0,000,000 invested in the lumber industry in Canada, 06,000,- 000 +66,000;000 is in British Columbia, $45,000,000 in Ontario, and $37,000,000 in Quebec. Insect Control iio'ects are costly, their control one of the greatest problems with which any country Is confronted, Western Notes A New Menace To Canadian Wheat Farmer Australian Growers Are Now Asking for a ‘Bounty on Export Wheat • Ottawa. -A new menace to the Canadian wheat grower looms. Australian' farmers are"asking their gpvernment to pay a bounty 'on the :expert of wheat,' or guarantee the' price at five shillings _ ($1:213/2) Per bushel, or both. They have already persuaded the government to appoint. a Board to market their wheat and to make pooling compulsory. But they are not content. They want to be in the position of the German farmers who have been paid bounties to 'export wheat to the British market. The Australian farmers will not be exporting much wheat this year, but if they have their way, they may be sending bounty -fed wheat to Britain in .00mpetition with Canadian wheat. It mould not be the first time Australia. paidexport bounties with the idea of encouraging primary production, Some years ago it paid bounty on the export of butter. Canada regarded the en- trance of bounty butter into her mar- kets as dumping and"imposed a coun- tervailing duty, The Australian farmers have their. claim for an export bounty on wheat or a guaranteed price, or both, on the uncertainty of the results frons wheat production. Some years, after allow- ing forinterest on investment, the re- turns from the wheat crop leave no- thing for the farmer's own, or hired labor. The average farmer producing wheat has to rely for one-third of his income on side lines, wool, lambs, eggs, cream, etc., it is claimed. The average cost of growing wheat, on the basis of the experiments of the Australian Government Demonstration Farm at Turretfield over a period of seven years (1922-1923 :inclusive), is 4s 111;, while the cost of teaming to the elevators is.2.5.pence. The incite, sive cost of growing and delivery to the market as represented by the elevator, is thus 5s. 11/2 d„ or $1,243,h. The estimate is for a 300 acre farm yielding 19.64 bushels of wheat Per acre. The yield per acre on the Tur- retfleid Demonstration Farm varied during seven consecutive years from 9:93 bushels per acre to 23.91 bushels per acre, but the average yield was 19.64 bushels per acre, with a range of 21.7 per cent. above and 49.4 per cent, below. The cost of production per acre at the Experimental Farm was distribu- ted as follows: £ e. 1. Labor 1. 4: 0 Use of Horses 16. '� Vse of implements 6., b Seed 9. 0 Essential Materials 12, 9. Incidentals 4. 0 Int, on Working Capital • 7. 2 Rent 18 months 16. 1 Winnipeg -Wallace W. Robinson, formerly employed in, the local branch of Stobie, Forlong and Matthews, was released on two years suspended sen- tence after pleading guilty in police court to theft of several thousand dollars worth of mining stock from the company. Full restitution had been made. Winnipeg - Unemployment has swelled by one-third during the past week, according to records at the Un- employment Service of Canada. About 1,500 men are now registered as seek- ing work in the city. Return of workers from lumber camps in the north and east Is given as reason for the increased idleness. Winnipeg. -Convicted of a serious charge against a girl, Charles Galsky, was given a 10 -year term in penitenti- ary by 5l]. Justice Dysarj, A previ- ous sentence of 10 years and 10 lashes when Galsky was found guilty last fall had been net aside be the Court of Appeal, Winnipeg, -fames Grant, president of the Manitoba Association of Un- employed Ex -Service Men, has resign- ed from the position. J, Feeney, aot- ing-pi'esident during Grant's absence at Ottawa recently with an unemploy- ment delegation, Is the new head.. Grant was remanded for one week on a charge of ,converting funds of the or- ganization to his own use. Water -Fowl Suffer from Drought Owing to drougbt conditions in Can- ada's Prairie Provinces during 1929 many ponds, prairie sloughs, and"shal- low lakes used for breeding purposes by water -fowl were dried tip. Shamrock V Will Make the Fnal Effort of the Sporting Knight ALL THE SKILL OF BRITISH BOAT BUILDERS BROUGHT INTO PLAY Workmen at work on deck and keel of Shamrock V, Sir Thomas Lipton's challenge craft for coveted America cup, at Shipyards at Grosport, Eng, This is noted' British sPortman's fifth attempt to wrest, away trophy. To Encourage Production in Nova Scotia Great Need is to Increase Cone • sumption. of Fish `in Upper Canada Ottawa. -Seeing that the Maritime Provinces are only able to sell one- tenth of their fish catch, in point of . quantity, probably less' in point of value,- in the other, provinces 01 Can. oda, would it not be a good plan for; the Dominion Department of Fisheries to use the proceeds of the tax it ie now levying on the fish catches landed by steam trawlers in an endeavor, by publicity wore,, ho expand the market for fish in Canada? . - '14iere is. no good reason why that tax should bo turned into the national treasury. The tax is an anomaly. In no ether industry does the Govern meet impose a tax intended to dls- oourage the use of th most up-to-date • machines, Being exceptional, the pro- need& of a tax intended to limit pro- duction, should be expended to en- courage consumption. The onetenth of their quantity production which the Maritimes are ableto market in the rest of Canada consists largely of haddock, That is recognized as the " most popular of Atlantic food fishes, because of the fineness of the flesh structure. But other sea fish have an equally iodine content, a food re- quirement of importance to people far from the sea coast. Most of the mut- ton raised near the Atlantic coast is sold to hotels in the U.S„ largely be- cause it answers the iodine require ments, including the matter of taste. The Maritimes, in view of the fact. that they are required by the Domin- ion tariff to buy manufactured pro ducts of Canada, or -to cite motor cars as an instance -pay 45 per cent. more for imported catches, have rea- son to expect a bigger market for their fish in Canada. An oyster industry in Prince Ed- ward Island yielding $1,000,000 a year is a possibility, according to the ex- perts of the Dominion Fisheries De- partments. At present the oyster in- dustry ndustry of P.E.I. is insignificant., To encourage production in this, as• in other branches of the fishing in- dustry, the great need is to increase consumption in the -Canadian market which will become a atable market. Girl Marriages Stir the West Conditions in Saskatchewan are AImost as Bad as They are in India Regina, Sask,-Canadiauborn girls 'in Saskatchewan •Ivied at too early. an age. Statistics just made public Yndieate that Canadian girls, under 16, out- number brides of other nationalities i11 recent weddings. Figures available Isere show that foreign -born girls are far more apt to. marry at the "sensible age." D. M. Riatich a Conservative party leader in Saskatchewan, drew'up a re- port to answer charges ,made at To- ronto that "child marriages" among foreign -born people in the West were; Increasing in alarming proportions. 14Iiss Nellie Forman, settlement worker in Regina for many years, told Toronto people that foreign girls of 14 and 15 years of age were being forced into marriages with men they scarcely knew. 1liss Forman was quoted as sayin4 foreign -born citizens of Saskatchewan used their children as chattels, con eplling the girls to marry while they, were still children. Totals 4. 16. 0 Divided by 19.64 bushels per acre this makes the cost per bushel oil the farm 4s. 111, or $1,211/2 cents, on that basis the farmer has to receive a price of over $1.21 to make any net Prat. Another division of the average costs per acre on the Australian De- monstration Farm over the period 1922-28 is given as follows: £ a. d. Preparation of fellows to March 31 1. 0. 0 Seeding Operations 1. 3, 11 Harvesting Operations 17, 0 Incidental Expenses 11, 10 Int. In Working Capital 7. 2 Rent for 18 .aontlls 16. 1 Total 4, 16. 0 Or 4s, 111. per bushel on a yield, of 19.64 bushels per acre, Last year's production costs, the AAustralian farmers claim were high- er than the average for 1922-28, and that to meet tieing costs greater ef- forts mustbe made to increase the yield per acre. If a crop is badly put in, the chances are that the returns will not cover the cost of production,: they say. Australia's none too satisfactory financial position makes it imperative that her government use every feas- ible means of encouraging increases in exports. WiT AND WISDOM Be rather wise than witty; for much wit hath commonly much froth, and 'Us hard to jest, and not sometimes jeer, too: which many times sink deeper that was intended or .expected; and that was designed for mirth ends in saness,-G, Trenchil, Novelsst--"I'ni looking for an hon- est lawyer," Artist -"Then keep on travelling to the Never Never Land." These statements caused much con- steruation in Regina, where Miss For- man enjoys a great ileal of support. Statistics covering a period of three Years show that out of twenty''mar- riages in 1926, of girls under the age of 16, seventeen of the girls were Canadian, one was French and two were born in the United States. In the following year there were twenty-eight marriages of girls un- der 10. Out of this number twenty-four of the girls were Canadian, one was from the British Isies, one from Fin- land, one from Poland and one from the United States. In 1928, the last year recorded in statistics, only twenty-one marriages of brides of minor age occurred the province. Out of this number fifteen were Can • adian girls, two were Russian, and four Hungarian, Polish, Rumanian and Amerean, respectively. LIFE'S SHORTCOMINGS Did you ever see a schoolboy tumble on the ice without stooping innned- ately to re -buckle the strap of his. skates? And would not Ignotus have painted a masterpiece if he could have found good brushes and a proper can- vas? Life's shortcomings ,would be bitter indeed 1f we could not find ex- cuses for them outside of ourselves. And as for life's successes -well, it ie certainly wholesome to remember how many of tbem are clue to a fortunate position anti the proper tools, Henry Van Dyke., ANGER Our anger and impatience often prove much more mischievous than the things about which we are angry ,or impatient.