OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 10, 13 January 1899, Page 2

OLD AGE PENSIONS.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —A few words concerning the Old Age Pension. Now, do you think it fair that people with an income of ten and fifteen shillings per week should be favoured with the pension? I think they ought to be satisfied and not be so greedy. There are poor people in Auckland who have no money only what they work for, and I know some of them are over 63, and yet these "old people, fat as they are with income, are running aboutUrying to get their papers filled in. Now I think the likes of these greedy people ought to be found out, and not get the old age pension; and another thing, some of them have grown tip sons and daughters married with comfortable homes, and yet they are crying about being poor. They ought to be ashamed of themselves imposing on the Old Age Pension.—l am, etc., 1 A.N.Z. [All who are legally entitled to the 1 pension should put in their claims. That a man has grown up sons and daughters is no bar to his claim. Our correspondent's letter smacks of personal animus against someone.—Ed E.S.]

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—Will you kindly insert the following few remarks on what appears to me the very injurious way the Old Age. Pension Act works in respect to -many deserving people. At present I only wish to draw the attention of the public to one clause which appears to me most unreasonable, viz.: that the claimant must have resided continuously in the colony for not less than twenty five years immediately preceding the application for pension. Nowut is well known there are many persons, of most excellent character, married as well as single, who have resided in this country for forty and fifty years, and have been contributing largely to revenue who are nevertheless shut out from participating in the benefits derived from the Old Age Pensions Act because they happen through stress of circumstances to have been absent from the colony for a period- altogether exceeding two years.

Now, sir, it seems to me very unjust that these individuals who have spent the greater part of their lives in helping to build up this young country and who now in old age,

through no fault of their own, are overtaken with poverty, should be debarred from receiving a little help (small though it may De) from the Government whose treasury they have, helped to replenish. Leaving this matter with more able hands to further ventilate,—l am, etc.,

DiICIMUS.