According to the last annual report of the Commissioner of
Pensions at Washington, summarised in Tuesday's Times, there are now 676,160 pensioners on the rolls, or 138,000 more than at the close of the previous fiscal year. The amount paid in pensions last year was nearly £24,000,000, an advance -of over two millions beyond the previous twelve months. Nor is this the end. The Commissioner reports that his 'department is still issuing "about 30,000 certificates to new pensioners every month, and he expects that during the -current year 350,000 claims to pensions will be decided." At present the appropriation for pensions is over £26,000,000, but it is asserted that this will be insufficient when this year's batch of pensioners is added. The Commissioner calculates 'that i "making full allowance for deaths, a further sum of 15 million dollars will be needed to meet the enlarged pension- list." In other words, the pensions are in measurable distance of being 230,000,000 a year, or not so very far short of double the interest on our National Debt. No doubt the pensioners must die some day, but the tenacity of life exhibited by State annuitants is always something astonishing.
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