PENSION DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 172, 24 July 1933, Page 8

PENSION DAY.

LUCKY IMPERIAL MEN.

BENEFIT OF EXCHANGE,

From tlie shacks tn the back alleys 01 poorer Auckland, from the comfort of Remuera homes, tliey came to form ;• ceaseless procession of men and women, young and old —a procession vhich filed in and out of the Wellesley Street Post Office to-day, to draw their pensions ana go their way. It was a strange sight. For those who drew pensions from the Imperial Government, it was a day of jubilation. They benefited by New Zealand's exchange on London, ana about 300 Imperial pensioners who deal with the Wellesley Street Post Office received close on 25 per cent more than their usual drafts. It was the first tinje that Imperial pensions had been pai'l since the exchange rate went up. The payments are half-yearly. Young widows of war-time heroes rubbed shoulders with veterans of the Maori War. There are still half a dozen men of the Maori War who draw their £49 a year, old fellows who shuffle i» with sticks.

All sorts of pensions are being pa' l ' I to-day. Here is a man tapping with a stick as lie walks down tlie passage. He receives Lis blind pension, and taps his way out. There goes a little lady, very old and very frail, wrapping up her few shillings and tucking it away in her purse—and that woman over there is the widow of a former sergeant of the Life Guards. A very handy little sum has just been taken away by a former dredge master. His place at the counter is taken by a bandmaster, who is followed by a member of the Metropolitan police force.

So the procession files on. Here there is an ex-colonel from a crack Englis'i regiment, badly shot, but still stamp.d with the air of the military man; an! there goes a man who once wore tli." kilts of the famous Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. If lie had stayed with them lie might not have been drawinv his pension to-day, but he joined tli- - Royal Air crashed.