Unless the Minister has anything to say on the subject of the married pension which was discussed here on the Second Stage, I am opposed to the passing of this Resolution. If a man were in receipt of unemployment assistance and had a wife and five children, he would receive, in addition to his basic allowance, a payment of 12/6 per week and also food allowances averaging 14/- per week. He would receive 12/6 in cash and 14/- in bread, milk and butter—a total of 26/6, in addition to his basic unemployment assistance allowance. We are here making provision for men who are injured in the service of the State as soldiers serving to defend all that we have here, and this Bill provides that if an officer is injured and suffers 100 per cent. disablement, that is, if he is completely unable in a permament way to provide for his own subsistence and that of his family, he gets a basic payment for himself, if he is single man, and he gets £30 a year, if he is a married man, to keep his wife and any family he may have. If he is a private or non-commissioned officer, he gets 10/- a week, in addition to his basic rate, as a married pension to keep his wife and family.
A Bill which approaches the debt which this country will owe to men who give their ability to earn their own living to the extent of 100 per cent. and who find themselves in a condition of 100 per cent. disablement from the angle of telling these men: "We will give you a basic amount for yourself, and, if you have a family, we will give you 10/- a week," is an insult to all we have been working for in the past. It is utterly out of keeping with the way in which the ordinary people look on the Army and on the services which they realise the Army are prepared to render to them; it is utterly out of keeping with the whole outlook of our people on social conditions for the future; and it is entirely out of step with what other people, caught up in much more difficult circumstances throughout the world to-day, are thinking. I want to put that simple position at this stage.
The Government have repeatedly indicated with regard to people in receipt of unemployment assistance that they give them a certain amount which is not intended to keep them entirely in comfort, and yet a man on unemployment assistance would get 26/6 per week to keep a wife and five children, while we offer 10/- a week to a 100 per cent. disabled Army soldier or sergeant. Apart altogether from decently providing for the wife and children of a man who gives all his physical and perhaps his mental capacity in the service of the country, there is the question of justice in the mind of the man who is reduced to these conditions simply because he serves his country. How can we think that we are in any reasonable or adequate way providing for the case of an unfortunate man of that type, when, on top of the physical incapacity and the suffering arising from it, we put the mental torment of seeing his wife and family so inadequately provided for?
I do not think any section of the House will agree that the Bill adequately provides for them, and I again ask the Minister if that is not such a blot on the Bill that the Bill is not worth passing, for I am perfectly satisfied that there is no claim implied in any section of it that cannot and could not wait until this Parliament gets clear in its mind as to what is the necessary adequate provision which should be made for the wife and children of a man who suffers disablement as a result of service in the Army in defence of the country in present circumstances. Unless the Minister can indicate that he proposes radically to change that position, I am definitely opposed to the passing of the Resolution, and to the voting of any money for any of the purposes in the Bill, because from the point of view of the Army man and the point of view of our outlook on social matters generally, this is the overriding consideration.