THE CARE OF THE AGED.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10266, 8 February 1899, Page 4

THE CARE OF THE AGED.

The investigation of the claims for old age pensions is laying bare a very sad feature of our social life. Affection for parents is one of the best tests of the advance a nation has made in civilisation. We do not call a race civilised who kill their old people. Amongst even primitive populations the growth of love for parents is proof of the advance that civilisation is making amongst them. There is one race that stands pre-eminent for this virtue—love for parents—namely, the Chinese. In China there is i"- need to recite in their places of worsnip the fifth Commandment. They honour their parents, and no Chinaman could conceive it possible for anyone to neglect such a duty. It has become so ingrained in the moral life of the people that they do not require to teach their children to honour taeir parents. And is there any moral duty move worthy of regard? It will be an evil day for oiir race when tne parents and the aged are not honoured and esteemed. It would mean a destruction of home life and a lowering of the moral tone of the whole community. "We must look lacts, however, straight in the face. In many places aged parents are going before Magistrates claiming the pittance of .about a shilling a day, though their children are well able to maintain them and waste more than a shilling a day on things that are unnecessary. Surely it is not showing respect to parents to allow aged people of seventy years of age to go begging for a pension. If pensions were given to all of good character who had been a certain number of years in the colony, we could understand the demand, but the pension is by law confined to the poor or thedestitute. Is it, right for children of means to allow their parents to take, such' a pension? It is not honouring the aged, it is not reverencing parents, to allow such people to go begging for a pension. It places our civilisation, as compared with the Chinese, in an unenviable* light when such scenes are witnessed in our Courts. And what must the effect be on the future of our race if it is thought proper to throw the maintenance of one's parents on the State? Our Destitute Persons Act makes provision for the children sup porting aged parents, as the parents ore bound to support their children. Brothers are hound to support destitute brothers or sisters. In fact all relations within one degree of consanguinity are bound to support each other. We recognise the fairness of such a principle, and yet as a colony we allow the parents elf well-to-do people to become a charge on the State. It seems to us utterly indefensible. We are sure that no Chinese would allow their parents to claim it, and has

it come to this that the proud AngloSaxon race in New Zealand has.not tho self-respect of a despised Mongolian ? It is said that our children lack reverence and show little respect for their elders. What will our future generations bo like in this respect if wo train our young people to believe that the support of their aged parents is no concern of theirs ? This is another illustration of what the far-reaching effects of our Old Age Pension scheme may bo. It will discourage thrift, and if in addition it tends to the neglect of one of the most important commands in the Decalogue, it will be evil indeed. Meantime, to see old parents with sons and daughters able to maintain them, submitting their claims for an old age pension, is a .saddening spectacle aud shows how little respect wo have as a nation for the oft-repented fifth Commandment. We have much to learn from the Buddhistic Chinese, and yet we are sending them Cliristian missionaries.