CORRESPONDENCE.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10269, 11 February 1899, Page 9

CORRESPONDENCE.

NEW ZEALAND AND FEDERATION. TO THE EDITOR OF THE TRESS. Sir, —It is satisfactory to see, by nhe straightforward, business-like letter in your issue of last Tuesday, that our commercial men are beginning to bestir themselves, and are not inclined to acquiesce in the suicidal course of isolation which our colony seems to be drifting into. Surely the fact** and figures which Mr .latins so clearly puts before us are sufficient to make any thinking man pause before casting in Iris lot with those whose policy, or rather want of policy, hampers trade with all our natural markets, if it dees not absolutely close some of them to us altogether. It is. hopeless to look to our professional politicians to move in this matter; the idea of federation is naturally abhorrent to them, for, should it come about, the occupation of a goad many of them would be gone. We see from time to time, in the columns of tiie leading papers, much bewailing over our cumbersome and costly form of government, but now, when a golden opportunity offers for greatly simplifying it. we are, apparently, going to let the chance slip. In the Dominion of Canada, where federation has proved such a grand success, one marked ehect has been that socco of the provinces find that they now no longer require the expensive bicameral system of government, but find that one Chamber, with fewer members, is quite sufficient and much cheaper. Newfoundland, which declined at first to throw in her lot with the Dominion, is now bsginning to find out- what a mistake she has made, and is anxious to come in. It is earnestly to be desired that New Zealand may not follow the same undignified course and only come into tlie federation when her necessities compel her to do so. If we New Zealanders imagine that we are going to stand out of federation and then get all that we want by a commercial treaty with United Australia, as suggested in your leader of 9th inst., or in other wca*ds, it' we think that the Australians are so simple as to allow us to pick all the plums out of their pudding, we may find, when too late, that we have made a great mistake.—Yours, &c, NEW ZEALANDER. THE CARE OF THE AGED. TO THE EDITOR OF THE TRESS. Sir,-—The heading of your article of Wednesday must talis the notice of anyone of us who have lost their own aged. I think your article should be read over and over again by everyone, no matter what their politics may be. I don't know that I have any ; I scarcely know what politics mean. I doubt I possess those of a muu, now dead, who said to mc one day, "If you show mc the man who will fill my shop with custom, I'll vote for him." I surely would. I doubt there are many like us vote. But your leader in its title goes further than even self-interest. It affects those who supported us—without any thought of self-interest-*-before we were able to support ourselves, and you .say we are neglecting them. We are without doubt. "Affection for parents is one of the best tests of the advance of civilisation; we do not call a race (nation) civilised who kill their old people." But we do call our race civilised, and—we will not support them, as we see almost every day on an average by reading your reports of the Magistrate's Court; thence the need for tlie State to make a provision that they shall not be neglected. Again, is it not more likely to give a comfortable feeling to old people, that it is the worth of their 'own services to the country, in some form or other, rather than to a form of self-denial on the part of their children, that provides provision, or comfort, for the days when they can work no longer to provide suitably the necessaries of life? I think their self-respect would be soothed by such a kncwledge. I quite agree with your remark that "If pensions were given to all of good character who had been a certain number of years in the colony," it would carry no, evidence of poverty or destitution, and so no humiliation. But that is something which we yet hope for. It is not only those who show signs of poverty who are poor. There are others, I think one-fourth, to whom a pension—an earned pension—would be a boon, and if those public servants -who are many years in receipt of regular pay receive a pension, why not those whose earnings are broken by illness or want of work. We never see put forward against those who occupy high places, and know at the end of a certain number of years that they will receive a pension, that it will do away with thrift. It does not. Yet whatever their earnings or private means they are sure of a pension. And rightly so, otherwise Britain and her colonies would lose the services of some of her best servants and sons, born and naturalised. The title of your article leaves another form of "Care for the aged" in my mind, of which I must not now speak, having regard for your space.— Yours, &c, S. G.