World War service which was defined as terminating on Aug. 31, 1921.
In 1921 another War Pensions Act completed the reform of administration by three important amendments of pension law : (a) The persistent demand of pensioners that their pensions should be settled, and that they should be relieved of the frequent medi cal examinations which were necessary to establish their condition from time to time for pension purposes, was met. The act declared every award, i.e. decision in respect of disablement claimed, made up to the date of the passing of the act (Aug. 21, 1921) , if not stated to be subject to review, to be final; and in the case of all other pensioners, including those whose claims might hereafter be admitted, the ministry was directed to make regulations for de termining finally the degree, if any, of disablement they were still to be regarded as suffering. A right of appeal was given within a year of the award to an independent appeal tribunal (appointed, like the other tribunals, by the Lord Chancellor, but composed of two medical men and an ex-service officer or man), but subject to this, the final award was unalterable. About 600,000 final awards—of which some 400,000 are life pensions—have been made since 1921.
(b) Claims for compensation on the score of disablement were only to be entertained by the ministry under its warrants if made within seven years of the man's discharge from service or before Aug. 31, 1921, which ever might be the earlier. (c) The right of appeal to one of the appeal tribunals, on a refusal of the ministry to admit a claim for disablement or death as due to war service, was declared to be exercisable within one year only of the notifica tion of the ministry's decision. The same act also brought about a drastic alteration in the constitution and powers of the local committees. The existing committees were abolished and new areas of local administration created with officers directly responsi ble to the minister, and new committees, fewer in number, for them. The new committees, though composed much on the old lines, but with one quarter of their members disabled ex-service men, were given agency and advisory functions only, the chief of which were the investigation of complaints by pensioners, and the representation of them to the ministry, and the supervision of pen sioned orphan children.
The subsequent history of World War pensions is one of gradual quiescence. The only important amendment of pension law in recent years has been the recognition (warrants of 1924) of claims to pension by widows and parents whose husbands or sons die more than seven years from discharge, but it is limited to widows or dependants of men who are recognized as being disabled at the time of death by the fact of the receipt of disability pension.
Awards of pension, allowance or gratuity have been made from the beginning of the war up to the end of March 1929, to over two million persons. Those in receipt of pension or other grant at that date numbered about a million, who, together with their wives and children so far as in receipt of allowances, may be grouped as follows : disabled officers, nurses and men, 507,000; widows of officers and men, 143,000; adult dependants of deceased officers and men, and 15,000 motherless children, 314,000; total pensioners 978,000; wives and/or children of the foregoing for whom allowances were payable, 536,00o. The total expenditure on pensions of the World War from its outbreak to the end of March, 1929 (including that of the service departments before 1917) amounted to L860,000,000, a sum which will probably represent between one-third and two-fifths of the aggregate pen sion liability of the country by the time that the pension list is exhausted. The annual expenditure was at its maximum in 192o 21, when it reached LI 06,000,o0o. Since that date it has shown a continuous decline to 1929, when it was estimated at and should continue to decrease, though at a slower rate. The liability in future years is calculated approximately at L51,000,000 in 1930-31, £37,000,000 in 1940-41, £26,000,000 in 1950-51, and ii5,000,000 in 1960-61. (A. Ho.) See PENSIONS, NAVY, ARMY, AND AIR FORCE; PENSIONS : THE UNITED STATES.