OLD AGE PENSION'S.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 90, 13 October 1898, Page 5

OLD AGE PENSION'S.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE HON. MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. (By kind permission of the Editor.) Hon. Sirs — You will shortly be called upon to deal with a measure entitled Old Age Pensions. • I take this, opportunity, as a unit in the ranks of Labour, to protest against the passsing of the measure at the present time, and under its conditions, on the following grounds : — Tour Council has ever held it to be its Constitutional practice and duty not to assent to any new and widereaching experimental legislation until your Council had been satisfied that the country had had such projected legislation definitely placed before it and. that there , had been a general demand "for the same. In the case of the present measure, other, than as an incidental question at some hustings the issue has not been before the country, and certainly in its present form not contemplated by any electorate nor any single organisation seeking to secure provision for" old age. The issues involved demand that the country should have, time and opportunity to realise the financial and moral environment of the Bill, for in its fiuancial aspect, however much it may be ai, present circumscribed by curious conditions, it cannot be denied that ifc involves a financial consideration equal to what has and will be the expenditure upon the public works of the colony, while its effect upon our moral and social structure will be of such a character as should, to use the words of a late statesman, " make sane men pause." I therefore appeal to your Honourable Council, as the Constitutional bulwark agaiusb arbitrary legislation, to determine, and that quite irrespective of the abstract question of making some adequate provision for old age, that this question, so high in its financial aspect, so far-reaching in its morality, shall be relegated to the people for their decision, and that if their reply should be in the affirmative such measure shall be based upon a financial basis sound in its economj-, and permanent for its sources, and that the moral basis shall be in line with the true traditions of our race, the self-help and reliance of the individual, coupled with the guarding and helping hand of 'the State. The measure as it appears before you is one that distinctly places a premium upon uuthriffc and improvidence, and taxes with heavy burden the thrifty working man and woman. Though there are specious provisions that under certain conditions persons may not receive pension, yet it distinctly provides that the improvident shall receive pension ; while on the other hand it in set terms determines that the provident working man and woman who may by thrift and foresight, by saving, or by insurance have made some slight provision for old age, shall be penalised by being compelled to pay heavily throughout their life by way of Customs and other sources to make provision for the thriftless, while he or she will be denied the right of participation in such pension fund which they have been compelled to subscribe to. It is a measure distinctly framed against the best traditions of our race, and opposed to that altruistic spirit which has made our race and Empire the foremost and envied of the world. Your Hon. Council is aware that the present measure has been forced through the House by numerical strength, and not by an exhaustive and intelligent enquiry into the issues involved, both finaucial and moral, but by and under an autocratic mandate to "sit tight," and not to discuss or consider the provisions of the Bill. I submit, that your Council is in duty bound, when a measure is forwarded to you carried under such conditions, to carefully weigh the arguments of the protesting minority, and to determine on Constitutional grounds that any measure so forced through and forwarded to you must receive a distinct mandate from the people before you can allow such to become statute law. As one who has ever believed in and supported wise and adequate provision being made by the people and State against old age and the vicissitudes of life, I enter my humble protest against a measure which I am fully convinced, if applied to our colonial environment, will prove most disastrous to the best interests of the provident aud deserving working man and woman, inimical to our friendly and provident societies and insurances effected by the working classes, a drying up of many sources of philanthropic effort, and a distinct lowering of the tone and moral fibre of the masses. And finally, from your Hon. Council I appeal to Caesar (the democraoy), and urge my fellow working men not to be gulled and deluded by this measure, which, if put on the Statute-book, will be found in its pi'aclical application to be and to contain all %he vicious and degrading principles of the English workhouse minus the brick walls. I am, &c, William Earnshaw. Wellington, Bth October, 1898.