§ Mr. HUNTasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Henry Davies, who enlisted on 16th November, 1904, in the Shropshire Light Infantry, was discharged from Netley Hospital on 20th December, 1910, suffering from consumption; that he has only a temporary pension of 8d. a day, and, being unable to work, is obliged to live in the same house with his father, a farm labourer, and six children; and whether any provision is made by the War Office for cases such as this, where a soldier has contracted disease in the service of his country, where the total income for eight persons is only 13s. 8d. a week, and where there is risk that the children will become consumptive from living in the same house with a consumptive soldier?
§ Mr. HALDANEIt appears in this case that the disease mentioned was neither caused nor aggravated by military service. It is not, therefore, possible under the regulations to award this man more than a small temporary pension.
§ Major ARCHER-SHEEasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a man named George Evans, late of Loch's Horse, was discharged as medically unfit from the Army in July, 1901, and given one year's pay as gratuity on account of wounds received from a shrapnel shell; that this man was in July, 1910, given 1s. per diem pension for life owing to the disability from which he suffers; and that the Secretary, Royal Hospital, Chelsea, in a letter dated 24th January, 1911, 575W has informed Evans that the Commissioners of the Hospital refuse to pay him the arrears of wound pension between 1902–1910; and whether, seeing that the disability commenced in 1901 and has been continuous, he will direct that these arrears to which he is clearly entitled shall be paid to him.
§ Mr. HALDANEGeorge Evans was discharged in 1901 in consequence of a ruptured muscle—not a wound. It was not then considered that his disability would prevent him from earning a full livelihood. He was given a gratuity of a year's pay. On 11th July last he applied for further pension, and upon medical examination it was found that he was now incapacitated to the extent of one half. He was accordingly given a life pension from the date of his application. Arrears are never given in such cases, and it is not proposed to depart from this rule.