The Chairman of the Repatriation Commission has forwarded for advice the following memorandum:

Under the Second Schedule to the Australian Soldiers' Repatriation Act 1920, a special pension of £8 per fortnight may be granted to a blinded soldier not maintained in an establishment at the public expense.

The Commission has up to the present granted the special rate of pension to totally blinded soldiers and to those who, at the best, can merely discern light from darkness.

A number of applications has been received from ex-soldiers who are not really blind but who, it might be said, have, as a result of war service-

(a) only a dim perception of objects; or

(b) sight which is so defective as to render them almost blind

and, in both instances, the disability precludes them from following a sighted occupation.

The Commission would be glad of your opinion as to whether it would be justified in granting to either of the cases referred to in the preceding paragraph a special pension under the Second Schedule to the Act.

The Second Schedule to the Australian Soldiers' Repatriation Act 1920 provides, inter alia, as follows:

The Special Rate of Pension may be granted to members of the Forces who have been blinded as the result of War Service, and to members who are totally and permanently incapacitated, (i.e. incapacitated for life to such an extent as to be precluded from earning other than a negligible percentage of a living wage).

It is difficult to define precisely where blindness ceases. I do not think that merely being able to distinguish light from darkness excludes a man from the category of 'blinded'.

A blind man is one who cannot see, and I do not think that a man whose sight is merely dim or defective can be described as blind if he can perceive objects.

I would point out, however, that if a man is, as the result of defective sight, incapacitated for life to such an extent as to be precluded from earning other than a negligible percentage of a living wage, he may, in my opinion, be granted a special pension under the Second Schedule.

[Vol. 18,p. 91]