# The question of disabled veterans in the Polish Sejm

- URL: https://syn.by/en/history/archives/disabled-veterans-polish-sejm/
- Published: 1924-06-26T18:05:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-11T01:47:21+00:00
- Section: Archives
- Language: en
- BE edition: https://syn.by/historya/arkhivy/sprava-vajskovych-invalidau-polskim-sojmie.md
- RU edition: https://syn.by/ru/istoriya/arhivy/delo-voennykh-invalidakh-polskom-seyme.md

> The Polish government has cut aid to disabled war veterans and asked for full powers to restrict it still further. The Sejm committee rejected this unanimously.

![](https://syn.by/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/illustration-6166-1024x585.webp)

In all the states of the world considerable attention is paid to the disabled, especially to disabled war veterans. In Europe even those disabled men who lost 10% of their capacity to work in the war receive aid from the treasury of their state.

On the basis of the Treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain, Poland undertook to pay a regular allowance also to those disabled veterans who served in the German or other armies but who, as permanent residents of certain localities, found themselves within the borders of present-day Poland.

And yet, whereas under German, Russian or Austrian laws incapacity of a disabled man was classed at 80%, under Polish laws, for reasons of economy, for the purpose of mending the Polish treasury, the degree of this classification of incapacity was lowered as early as last year to 50%; where it was 50%, it was lowered to 25%, and so on.

The total number of registered disabled war veterans in Poland is 375000 persons. To support them the government grants them concessions for the right to trade in cigarettes in the streets and the like. But of the whole number of disabled men, only 80000 persons have received such concessions.

All the above data, taken from the report of Deputy Bigoński at the sitting of 20.VI.24 of the Sejm Committee on Disabled Persons and Public Welfare, show that the matter of aid to disabled war veterans is very badly arranged in Poland. It turned out that for all the disabled war veterans the state treasury pays out in aid only 450000 Polish zloty a year.

In connection with the new bill introduced into the Sejm by the present government, on granting it powers for the time ahead, the committee mentioned above examined on 22 June of this year § 10 of the first article of this statute, in which the government demands to be given the right to reduce the aid to disabled men who hold trade concessions, and to deprive altogether of monetary aid those disabled men who have lost less than 25% of their capacity to work.

It is clear that the request for such powers was rejected by all the votes of the committee. Even the representatives of the landowners and capitalists, who support the government of Mr. Grabski and are ready to endow it with new full powers, did not dare to vote for taking away or reducing, for maimed people, even that quite insignificant aid which they have obtained thanks to the organization of their union.