Or even the party I represent. We have by no means carried out the other promise, to put in the last shilling. We certainly have not carried it out in the case of the men who have been disabled, for many of them are left to bear entirely on their own shoulders a burden that ought to be borne jointly by the State and themselves. The number of these men is growing and their cases will have to be dealt with, whether or not the Pensions Minister decides that that shall be done. There is growing up among the ex-service men and among the general public of this country such a strong feeling of dissatisfaction with the rapidly-growing number of such eases that it will compel the doing of something, whether the Pensions Minister and the Attorney-General are or are not willing that it should be done. I know that I may be met with the answer that the cases of these men have gone through all the machinery set up by the Ministry, that they have finally come to the Appeal Board, which is an institution outside the control of the Ministry of Pensions, and that the final decision has been that the condition of the applicants is neither attributable to nor aggravated by war service. That is a very poor consolation to the man who finds himself, after three or four years of war service, unable to maintain himself and his dependants. I do not care how carefully these cases may have been investigated. There are bound to be mistakes made, and there ought to be some machinery for dealing further with them. They ought to be dealt with by someone who is responsible to this House. There are cases of men who, before enlisting, never had a day's illness in their working lives. During their military service, or subsequent to it, they were attacked by disease which they know they contracted during the War.

Is it to be wondered at that you have growing dissatisfaction among these men when their cases are turned down? Is it to be wondered at that there is dissatisfaction among the dependants of men who were forced into the Army, although they knew that they were medically unfit, and in many cases were able to produce medical certificates to that effect? In the course of their service they aggravated the diseases from which they suffered, and eventually they died. Is it to be wondered at that their dependants should be dissatisfied? There is a considerable number of such cases in my own constituency, as in every other constituency. I have no intention of going into details, but I will give two examples. The first is the case of a trooper in the Yeomanry, who enlisted in April, 1915. He was medically unfit, and was so certified by his own medical attendant. Nevertheless, he was declared to be in a sufficiently high category for the Army. In consequence of the faulty construction of the hut in which this man was placed, the illness from which he had suffered was aggravated, and to such an extent that he died within two months of his enlistment. His widow and his children, who had been struggling to keep on his business, had eventually to give it up. The widow was granted a temporary pension of 15s. a week for herself, but received nothing for the children. That temporary pension will end after a certain period. The case has gone through all the machinery set up by the Ministry of Pensions, and eventually it found its way to the Final Appeal Board, which turned it down. Nothing can be granted to the children.

Take another case. It is that of a man now 37 years of age, the father of seven children. He served for four years in France and during the terrible time on the French Front contracted a certain disease. He came home and has never been able to do the work of a miner since. His case went through all the machinery of the Pensions Ministry, and finally reached the Appeal Board and was turned down. Such cases I could multiply to an enormous extent from my own constituency. They could be multiplied by the thousand from other constituencies. The number of such cases is becoming alarming. The matter will demand the attention of the Minister of Pensions and of the Attorney-General and of others who are responsible. They may reply, "What do you suggest should be done?" I have a suggestion to make. I make it as one who places very little reliance, on the Appeal Board. It would be very difficult to convince the House, the Minister of Pensions or the Attorney-General that we should depart from the system of Appeal Boards. Consequently, I suggest the improvement of that system in a way which will lead to a reconsideration of the cases. The suggestion is that the Attorney-General should set up a National Appeal Board, to which there can he referred cases which have been turned down by the area Appeal Boards.

8.0 P.M.

Under the ordinary law cases turned down in one Court go to another and a higher Court, and when all the Courts have dealt with them there is still the opportunity of appeal to the House of Lords. We want some such parallel as that. What I suggest would at least give the men concerned the satisfaction of knowing that there would be another hearing of all the circumstances of their cases. I suggest, further, that before this National Appeal Board the parties interested should be represented. I know that before the present Appeal Board they can be represented, but, as I am reminded, it is by payment, and in many cases they are not represented. They ought to be represented before this National Board, so that their cases may be sifted by people more competent than themselves to present intricate details of the kind. I make the suggestion in all seriousness, believing that it will go a considerable way towards solving the difficulty with which we are faced so far as many thousands of ex-service men are concerned. The day is not far distant when the Government will require to deal with this matter, because I can assure them that a very bitter spirit is growing up which must be met and dealt with and treated on lines of justice and fair play. I believe the suggestion that I have made would go a long way in the direction of meeting the needs of the class of ex-service men who are affected.