PENSION DAY

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 102, 24 January 1930, Page 12

PENSION DAY

A SOLEMN PROCEEDING HALL OF REMEMBRANCES A BOUQUET FOR THE CASHIER

(By

E.A.A.)

Pensions were paid out yesterday. As soon as the main office opened its doors the stream of pensioners entered in ones and twos. As the morning progressed people were waiting in a queue to receive this popular monthly Government contribution. Although five weeks’ grace is allowed the first day is always the rush day. The dinner hour is the most crowded time and pension money pours out acloss the counter in a steady stream of crisp pound notes; In the course of this one short day anything from £5OOO to £6OOO slips across the counter of the main Wellington office into the pockets of a thousand citizens. It is a solemn proceeding being paid a pension. No band plays. There are no whoops of joy. One just gets paid by one of two men behind Inevitable iron bars and one just goes. I stood behind those iron bars and watched.

Representatives from every nook and cranny in the social scale meet on the 23rd at the Pension Office. It is a hall of remembrances. Widows jostle with war nurses. Men maimed for ever in war receive from the country for which they fought cash payments for debits beyond the power of money to reclaim. The old and the blind have their gratuities pushed through the iron bars at them and totter away out of sight for another month.

Differing Methods. There are all manner of ways of being paid a pension. Some saunter in, slam down their certificates, snatch up the money and are out before you know they have arrived. Long experience has made them adept at’ the game. Some of them are obvious' down-and-outs —no ' braces, a tie dangles from one pocket and a wornout scarf clings to a collarless neck. Others are neat—well-dressed—their faces lined with the noughts and crosses of. strict economy. The very old, the sick and the bedridden are never seen. v They draw their pensions py proxy. A young girl, a youth, or an elderly gentleman obviously comfortably off—these are the proxies. If some of those who pass could but tell their story a fortune would be theirs —the room is full of unconscious Aloysius Horns. There is enough material collected in the Pensions Office on the 23rd to fill a library with best-sellers.

Bewildering Old Woman. The old women seem the most bewildered. The old men take their notes with methodical precision and a smile. Not so the old women. Look at that one there. She comes in furtively, apology written all over her wrinkled face. On her head she wears one of those peculiar convoluted bonnets. It balances magically on the tip-top of her head. It only partly hides a marvellous series of yellow “eow-licks” flecked here and there with nondescript monochromes of grey old age. Once she was —but never mind. Her face is set as if she were going to the dentist. There is no slamming down of certificates. Sheepishly she rummages in a minute black purse for the magic old-age paper that brings good money flowing across the counter. One would think she was an accessory to some ghastly crime, some unspeakable wickedness. Yet I know her character is unimpeachable. Leaflet No. 4 tells me so. It is merely unromantically labelled “Pensions in New Zealand,” and I would commend it to old ladies who now draw their pensions unnecessarily sheepishly. This leaflet tells me how perfect is the character of this good woman. She has neither deserted her husband nor her children during the last twelve years. Her youngest would now be- rising fifty, but, no matter, she has not deserted her. For the same period of twelve years she has not been in prison more tha four times nor for more than four months. What is there to be sheepish about? Moreover, for the year that is past she has lived a sober and reputable life and has not deprived herself of property to qualify for a pension. . Seventeen and sixpence a week is not conducive to riotous living, and she has every right to slam down her papers with the best and stamp her foot at the cashier. But only too clearly she .stopped living some forty years ago. Ever since she has lived in a depressive backwater of long, long black dresses, stockings that are stockings, and a thin short sealskin jerkin with a huge fur collar that is goodness knows what. No wonder she feels , sheepish. The present is a little bewildering, what with radio and aeroplanes and cashiers' who pay over money on the strength of a bit of paper confirming one’s age. The past—but that is another matter. Maori War Pensioners. “When will a Maori War pensioner come along?” I asked. A clerk looked up the answer in a file. “There are only two,” he said, “in Wellington.” One by one they have ’failed to answer the urge that drew them month by month to this rendezvous. To-day there are only just over two hundred. That other landmark, the Great War, has scarcely passed the 20.000 milestone. Yet some sny there will be no more war pensions; for there will be no wars. In the meantime a 00-yenr-old veteran of the Crimen has just been paid another pension. Did they say the same thijig in those days? I wonder—but there is a diversion and I forgot to ask him. An elderly woman, neatly dressed, has bnmled the cashier a bouquet. Rnther embarrassed he lays it on a ledger. Whv did she do it? When I left I saw thev gave a touch of colour to the drab* n°ss within. Perhaps she too felt how I felt—Hint the place was full of the past, all in neat rows in pigeonholes, ticketed and docketed and forgotten. There should be more flowers on'pension day and nerhaps a band playing old-time music.