§ 82. Mr. SIMMONDSasked the Minister of Pensions if, in view of the improved condition of the national finance, the Government will grant more generous consideration to applicants for disability pensions and treatment?
§ The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Major Tryon)I think the House will agree that there is no ground for my hon. Friend's suggestion that war pensioners have been ungenerously treated in this country. In spite of the recent severe depression which has necessitated reductions of public expenditure in most directions, no cuts whatever have been made in our war pensions and allowances, nor have the principles of our war pensions administration been allowed to be affected in any way; whereas in practically every other country which took part in the Great War, adverse changes have recently been made both in the rates of war pensions and in the practice of pensions administration.
§ Mr. SIMMONDSArising out of that reply, is it not a fact that very frequently the medical testimony is conflicting, and could not the Minister agree to utilise the discretion that has been placed in his hands in order to ameliorate the condition of some of these people?
§ Major TRYONI am not prepared to define my hon. Friend's exact view of what constitututes "very frequently," but in the last two and a-half years of his Membership of the House he has sent me only four cases bearing upon this 1887 question, and I do not think the particulars of those cases bear out his comment on the Ministry.