ENGLISH OLD-AGE PENSIONERS,

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 118, 17 November 1908, Page 4

ENGLISH OLD-AGE PENSIONERS,

THE FIRST DAY'Sf SCESfe - A social, -rexslntuHi was on 24th September MJegun in -England. To every post; office in the. kingdom thero came — to 'borrow a vivid phrase from Mr Asquith— a. "great procession of the poor," making application for tho forms which, if passed by the- authorities, entitled tho applicants to an old-age pension of 5s a week (reports an English journal). For vine first time in the annals of poverty, tho poor will have a check-book of their own. And they are: proud "in the knowledge that no taint of pauperism attaches to this giffc-ef-BrlSoeral Government, btvt that it comes as a reward for services to tho State as indubitable as those of^an Ambassador or a-soldier. There are 24,{)00 post offices, ia the biuted kingdom, and over 1000 in the London district. Each o£ these offices received from St. Martin-4e-G-raaid a. package containing application forms, the number being 1 regulated by the supposed needs of the district-. It was not, for instance, thought necessary to send tv- very bulky parcel to the post office m High street, Kensington, although the "Royal borough" has its poor as well as, but not equally with, Whitechapel. It was to the East-end, to Bermondsey, Walworth, aoid Nottinghoiil, that the heaviest consignment of forms went, and it was in these districts that the greatest number of the poor .took the first step in making their claim. r • It was in these districts, too, ibwt a reporter who made aj tour of some of j the sub-post-offices witnessed incidents full of .poignant justification of Mr Asquith's old age pension scheme. I Residence as a British subject in England- for 20 years is- one of the necessary qualifications for a pension. • But not many of the aliens of the East End trouble to take out naturalisation papers, and pnoisiibly not one is acquainted with this provision of the Act. So they trooped in to the post offices in chemists' shops, and asked for a- form. It was supplied, and received without- question, pushed into a greasy pocket, and taken home to be studied. One of the applicants at a Stepney office was a veteran railway servant, who had been with one of the companies for. close upon ' fifty .years, and left without a stain on his character, and also without a pension. To him, as to many thousands in his position, five shillings i a week, free from the taint of pauperism, would be an inestimable boon, and would mean all the difference between sheer poverty and what was to them affluence. As verification of ago many came to the post-offices armed with family Bibles, or some ancient document bearing the family names and ages. In some' cases these had been written on a steel engraving of some Biblical subject. Some who visited the post offices were laboring under the delusion that they would there, and then receive their first payment over the counter. Others who had turned 70 thought the pension should be reckoned from their 70th year, and that, therefore, they were entitled io arrears. Onof curious feature^ about the ap-. plications at the East End offices was that many of them were made by young people on behalf of their elders. The explanation given by one of the postmasters is that since, the recent series of motor-bus accidents in the Whitechapel Road the old people are afraid to venture into the streets.