The Parliamentary Secretary in his opening remarks expressed a considerable amount of indignation at the fact that some who were taking part in the Debate were criticising the Ministry of Pensions, and he pointed out that the Minister was just as anxious to secure justice for the ex-service men as any section of Members of this House could be. I do not think that there has been very keen personal criticism either of the Minister of Pensions or the hon. and gallant Gentleman himself. The burden of complaint has been that, whether it is the fault of the system which has been gradually built up or of the Ministry or of the officials who are working out this system in the Ministry, there are very large numbers of ex-service men in this country who are not getting justice and it is the duty of every section of this House to bring that before the Pensions Minister and to try to get these, cases remedied at the earliest possible moment. The hon. and gallant Gentleman also stated, with the view, I think, of proving that there was not very much in the complaints that had been made by my hon. Friends and others, that so far from the number of difficult cases increasing they were diminishing. At least the figures that he quoted led me to believe that that was the argument which he wanted to convey, because, he said, we are granting pensions at the rate of 300 per week.

That may be true. I have no means of contraverting that figure. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is in a far better position to give the exact figure than any private Member. But one thing equally important which I notice is that he did not tell the House of the number of men whose claims to pensions had been already recognised who have been cut off. It would be very important to get that figure. It is that type of case that has already been dealt with by myself and others in this House. The point which I am about to raise now, I suppose, I must address rather to the Attorney-General than to the Ministry of Pensions. It refers to the growing number of ex-service men whose cases are considered by all the machinery set up by the Ministry of Pensions, and are finally disposed of by the final appeal board by whom their claims are dismissed, generally on the ground that their present condition is not attributable to, and has not been aggravated by, War service.

Many of these men and their dependants are in very straitened circumstances at the moment. In many instances they are either dependent upon friends or upon the parish council in Scotland or the board of guardians in England. There is no more tragic figure to-day in our national life than the man who has put his all into the service of the State during the War, and, in the course of performing that service, has either contracted some form of disease or has been wounded, and is no longer able to maintain himself and his dependants. We were frequently told in this House and in the country, in the course of the War, that we were to put in the last man and the last shilling in order to come victorious through the conflict. Well I do know that we pretty well put in the last man.