PENSIONS FOR FARMERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 198, 22 August 1928, Page 9

PENSIONS FOR FARMERS.

RETIRING ALLOWANCE AT SIXTY. PROPOSAL BEFORE DAIRY CONFERENCE. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, this day. A proposal to arrange pensions for dairy farmers on reaching the age of 60, was contained in a remit to the annual conference of suppliers' committees of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company at Hamilton yesterday. The remit was from the Orini Committee, and read as follows: — "That it be a recommendation to the directors of the N.Z.C.D.C. that they evolve some scheme whereby shareholding suppliers, at a stated age, say, (50, shall receive a sum of not less than £1 per week till death, deductions to be made from cheques to cover whatever pension the supplier may apply for." The remit was regarded with mixed levity and seriousness. Mr. P. J. Mourant, in moving the remit, considered that when a man had been supplying to the company for 30 or 40 years some personal provision should be made for him on selling out, say, at the age of 60. The speaker said he understood there was a pension scheme for the staff and why not, he asked, for the suppliers? The scheme could be on a voluntary basis if necessarv.

Mr. Hiorns in seconding the scheme pro forma, thought £1 a week at 60 too little for any man. He did not see why some pension scheme for suppliers could not be arranged through an insurance company. If it would not benefit the older suppliers very materially, he thought it possible to made some satisfactory arrangements with an insurance company which would, at any rate, benefit the younger suppliers. Mr. H. H. Sterling, general manager, considered the proposal entirely outside the memorandum of the association. After all, the primary job of the company was to make a success of dairying, and with this the company had its hands' full. There was, he pointed out, an alternative method, through the medium of the National Provident Fund, which was designed especially to meet sucb cases as this. The remit was finally withdrawn.