OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 244, 8 July 1908, Page 8

OLD AGE PENSIONS.

' CASES OF HARDSHIP,'' / . (bt telegraph—press assocution.) 1 . . Aupkjand,' July 7. "It seems, to be an extraotdinaly stato pf tilings that a man's destitute wife should be debarred'of her Old age pension because jier husband happens to possess a few .shillings .a week; .by, way of income," remarked Sir. Kettle'this morning, itii tho.course-.of- a maintenance case, in which ,tho husband stated that'he had an income'of-18s.' 6d. a week, and tho wife, who,.'had not lived with him for twenty years, explained that because of this they had taken away her old ago pension'. '''There is nothing,odd about that," said Mr. Luiidon, who then went on to say he knew of a case whero a man in receipt of an old age pension sold-tho insuranco policy oil his wife's: life,; most ,of which ho used to iiurso'her, ami the last of it, excepting £2 odd, to bury her, yet his pension'was stopped fnv twclvo months, and ho was left to starve bfcause'lie'had. beeji in'receipt of so much "income.',' The twelve months wasjiot yet up and meanwhile the pensioner was being ir.ain'tained through charity.