Officers of Both Services.—Pensions for disabled officers have, since their first appearance as a charge upon public funds, been based on the recognition of the professional status and prospects of the officer. Pension is thus based on the half of the pay of the rank held by the officer at retirement subject to variation in accordance with the length of his service. An additional con sideration for severe wounds received in action, known as "wound pension" (maximum o8 a year) was devised in 1812 and was maintained up till the end of the World War, being permitted to be drawn in addition to half pay. The rate of disability pension for officers up to the rank of major was i2oo with a deduction of it() for each year of service short of 20 years, subject to a minimum of the half-pay rate (which for a 2nd lieutenant might be £54 a year). For naval officers a slightly different system obtained. If the disabled officer was under 4o years of age he received the half pay rate ; if over 4o a rate graduated according to age and length of service but not exceeding the pension due to him on voluntary retirement.
Pension for officers' widows, the provision for which as a pub lic charge goes back to the 18th century, varied according to the circumstances of the husband's death, death in action carrying a higher rate than injury or illness on duty. The rates in opera tion prior to the World War were, for the widow of a 2nd lieu tenant, ao a year in the former case and £40 in the latter.
In the first period the Government tried to keep the existing structure of administration. A cabinet committee, in the autumn of 1914, followed by a Select Committee under the chairmanship of the Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd George, considered the disability pen sion scales for both services and recommended substantially in creased grants which were speedily embodied in War Office warrants and Admiralty regulations. The new scale which sub sisted till the end of 1916, raised the widow's pension to ios. a week (12s.6d. at 35 and 15s. at 45 years of age), and raised her children's allowances : it provided pensions for parents and other persons so far as they had actually been dependent on the deceased soldier or seaman: it increased the maximum disability pension to 25s. a week and gave the disabled man's child an allowance
proportionate to his pension rate up to 2s.6d. a week. But the new warrants and regulations carried two important departures from former practice in regard to the very basis of disability pen sion. They recognized for pension the "aggravation" or worsening of a pre-enlistment injury or disease by service in addition to direct causation. This was an innovation called for by the mere fact that enlistments were being made of civilians of all ages up to 4o and in an emergency that did not admit of minute medical examination. More important in its consequences was the new principle of award by reference to capacity to earn a livelihood.
The regulations laid down that the maximum pension was appli cable to men "totally incapable of earning a livelihood," or if partially incapable the pension was to be such amount "as will, with the wages he may be deemed capable of earning, amount to 25s." While the principle itself found support in former service regulations, the actual wages earned had never been laid down as a criterion for determining the amount of the pension. The result was widespread grievance. The new principle as applied in practice undoubtedly acted as a deterrent to the exercise by the pensioner of such earning capacity as he had left and created a genuine grievance on the part of men who had returned to work.
The Government adopted also a further recommendation of the Select Committee by creating, under the War Pensions Act, 1915, a Statutory Committee of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corpo ration. The committee was given the functions, among others, of (a) supplementing warrant pensions in cases where, owing to exceptional circumstances, they appeared to be inade quate, and (b) providing for all matters involved in the resettle ment in civil life of discharged disabled men (their health, train ing and employment) and of the widows, children and dependents of those killed. The committee was also required to cause local committees to be set up to act as local agent investigating cases and distributing its grants, and, if they were able to do so, to make grants of their own. The act gave neither the central nor the local committees any funds at all, in the view that they should raise voluntary funds of their own and that existing voluntary funds would be at once turned over to the new corn mittees. Not unnaturally this expectation was quickly falsified and parliament had to vote a capital sum of one million for the purposes of the statutory committee. At once voluntary funds dried up and it speedily became apparent that public opinion expected the new organization, both central and local, to be financed entirely by public funds.