OLD-AGE PENSIONS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—As having been long a resident in New Zealand, and for many years a reader of the Spectator (now on a visit to the land of my birth), I should like, with your permission, to say a word in reply to a letter- which appeared in your last week's issue, beaded " Old Age Pensions," and signed J. W. Gordon. First, the writer is wrong in his statement that when the "Pension " Act was passed the recipients were " placated " with five shillings a week. The pension received was 7s., and the amending Act raised it to ten. Then, further, the writer strives to prove that through the political interests of the receivers of the pension, whom he designates "paupers," representing as t'ley do two and a half per cent. of the voters, it is not likely that they will be long satisfied even with this amount. I may say that at the last election, when the question of raising the pension from 7s. to 10s. was made one of the issues of the election, the majority was far greater in its favour than when the Government first raised the question and carried its first Bill : proving, I think, that the results of passing the Act have not only given satisfaction to the two and a half per cent. of voters, but that owing, perhaps, to the wave of prosperity through which the colony has been for some years passing, nearly the whole body of voters realised that they could afford to do fuller justice to those who through un- foreseen circumstances had fallen into a state of poverty. As to the designation which Mr. Gordon fixes upon the recipients of the pension, that of "paupers," my fellow-colonists do not look upon it in that light. They say if a man has reached the age of sixty-five, and been resident in the colony twenty-five years, and during that period has faithfully paid his rates and taxes, so far fulfilling as a good citizen his civic and State responsi- bilities, as well perhaps as rearing a family, and then at the age stated finds himself unable further to work and support him- self, he is entitled to some recognition from the State, which recognition is made in the granting of a pension now at the rate of 10s. per week. During the Session of Parliament now sitting at Wellington, I read the other day, the Government have proposed the setting aside of one million acres of land with which to endow these pensions. I may say that as an old New Zealander I have been a witness to the happy results in the case of both husband and wife, who have had to
fall back upon this pension.—I am, Sir, &o., W. C.
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