OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10268, 10 February 1899, Page 3

OLD AGE PENSIONS.

TO THE KDITCR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —I hay..? been a reader of your paper for many years, but I confess I begin to 'grow tiled of your continued complaining of political methods intended" to benefit ihe poor, if not of your way of thinking. You say in your article in Monday's "Press, that the Old Age Pension scheme "is but another form of general aid.'' I should like to know if the thousand's who receive immense pensions iioni the British Government is anything cisc but a general aid. All pensions tne granted to aid or assist. Ido really think your sarcastic comment upon tho of the measure* is unkind. A~i:iie of guidance must be-drawn somewhere, and if persons who are eligible for the pension refrain from application on account of being observed in public, well, that is their look out. I cannot see ttiat there is much publicity about it. feeing that tlui newspapers do not publish names, and the applicants aro tair-tl with tbe same brush. We Conservatives feel a little proud to read of the Right Hon. So-aiul-So, and many others, retiring on a large and wellearned pension ; aud you say, "It the pension were in reality a reward to deserving colonists, they would est torn it an. honour tc have their names mentioned in the What! on a shilling a day? No, no. Were, it not fir a partial b>.-k stain of meanness that would attach to the papor, a full report and publication of the names, of the applicants of tha Old Age. Pension seheire would probably be made, not possibly from motives of sympathy or the reverse,—Yours,, &c . J FRED.