Old Age Pensions

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 258, 28 July 1936, Page 11

Old Age Pensions

Sir, —“Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” When is the present Government going to fulfil its promises to the oldage pensioners? Here we are trying to make both ends meet with the same old income, but can't do it; every article that we need has gone up anything from 15 per cent, to 20 per cent., but nobody thinks of us. Even if the Government gave us 2/6 a week increase it would only bring us into the “status quo” before everything went up. “It costs me nearly 3/- a week more to just live,” said one old-age pensioner to me yesterday, but he also added “the Government can Cud money for holiday trips for members, secretaries and their wives to Samoa and the other islands, and I suppose the official visitors to the Coronation will need another few thousand pounds, but we will only have to stand by.” I think it’s rather a pity that some of the members should not have had a spell of hard times themselves; it would give them a little bit of the “fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind” spirit, but, never having been hard up themselves, they naturally think every other person is in a similar position. Every old-age pensioner voted for them (you might almost say en bloc) on their promises.—l am, etc..

STILL WAITING. Upper Hutt, July 25.

Sir, —The Labour Government is said to be a humane one. Has it given any reflection to the position of pensioners, particularly the old people, as the result of its recent legislation? While prices are now in the process of soaring upward, workers and unemployed receive more money with which to provide the necessities of life. But the position of the oldaged pensioner will soon become very desperate as his or her income remains fixed at a low figure in comparison to increased wages. Is it humane that these people should suffer? This is only one of the difficulties that the Labour Government has brought upon itself, and S very real one.—l am, etc., THOUGHTFUL FOR OTHERS. Pahiatua, July 24.