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Plainly the income from the insurance added to the compensation allowed by law does insure a certainty of modest independence of the family. The Government thus makes good for the soldier's child the educational standard which it tacitly sets up when it extends the allowance for the child's support until the age of eighteen. This age limit implies the equivalent of a high-school education, and is one of the most noteworthy features of the bill.

One great advantage of the measure is plain. The Government promptly recognizes and assumes its responsibility for the soldier and his family, and if the operation of the law proves successful, it will certainly avoid the difficulty of the old pension system, under which pensioners reached their highest numbers forty-four years after the close of the Civil War, and pensions their highest cost forty-nine years after the war was at an end. The soldiers' orphan asylum and the soldiers' home will not reappear after this war if the spirit of this measure is carried out.

Can the Government do this work? Personally, I unhesitatingly answer yes, and it can do it better than any private organization or than any combination of public and private effort, admirable as is the result of such combined effort in Canada. Nor do I forget that the civilian relief of the Red Cross will meet many emergencies, and that States and cities and individuals will help in various ways. The reasons for placing the whole financial burden on the Government are sound.

The law's administration presents many difficulties. Now is the time to face them. The law is a great instance of much of the newer social legislation in our country, which cannot be administered by business effectiveness alone, although that is indispensable.

As the juvenile court laws, the mothers' pension law, and the workmen's compensation laws and the health regulations of our cities and States are gradually developing a new type of trained person who unites scholarly or business acquirements with practical training in applied social science, so this law must invite and utilize the best ability of the country at every strategic point in this great and novel undertaking. The law is in some respects plainly experimental; amendments will probably be needed, but that is to be expected.

If the law can be administered through the long period ahead during which it must operate in the same spirit which drafted it, and if its administrators use wisely their power to make regulations and to allow modifications solely in the interest of the beneficiaries, a great technical problem of Government administration will be solved, but beyond that a real advance in justice to the soldier and his family will be gained. (1)