The new amendments Widows, Orph sion: made public generous scale than had been anticipated. The original Act, which was passed by the Conservatives in 1925, was designed to be almost self-supporting and, therefore, with a {Yew minor exceptions, pensions under it. were only granted to those widows whose husbands were insured under the scheme and, therefore, up to a point, had helped to pay for it, Of course, a large number of widows whose husbands had died before the Act was brought into force got no pensions and their complaints were much more audible during the general election than thi expressions of gratitude from those widows who had benefited. The amendments proposed by the Socialist Government will mean that many of the widows excluded under the original Act will now get pensions; actually all widows over 55 years of age, provided their husbands could have been insured under the Aet if they had been alive. idering taking immediate steps to change the present state of affairs. As things stand to-day, coroners in the British Isles have powers to collect information and to: call for evidence in any way they like and they are bound by no such rules as obtain in ordinary courts of justice. Many people feel that, in the! recent inquest, unfair suspicion was east upon the American actor, Drew, Justice by which a man is consider-innocent until he proved guilty.
Tt is suggested that the coroner's place should be taken by a panel of carefully selected magistrates and regulations made to ensure that} evidence should only be obtained in proper manner. No one blames; the coroners, whose duty it is to do all they can to collect all information that may throw light on. the death of a person, but the gon-eral feeling is that their inquiries should be limited to deciding the cause of death and the police made: responsible for any further action that may be necessary.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.