POOR PENSIONS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 116, 13 November 1923, Page 5

POOR PENSIONS

FOR CIVIL SERVANTS' WIDOWS

' INCBEASE LONG AWAITED.

Widows of deceased Public Service superannuitants have to try to live on £18 a year, and a strong plea that an increased allo'wancß should be granted was made by Mr. .H. A. 11, Huggins, late Controller of the Post Office Savings Bank,,when speaking at a farewell gathering yesterday aftiemoon. Mr. Huggins disputed the statement that the Oovernment pensioned off Civil servants handsomely. If there, was one thing which kept officers from retiring it was the absolutely inadequate amount allowed by the Government for their widows, stated Mr. Huggins. The total amount which the widow of a deceased Civil servant deceived ■■'. was £18 per annum. "Just fancy,'' remarked Mr. Huggins. "When a man gets.£soo a year and goes ont on £350, • immediately he dies his widow's income "is induced to £18 per annum. That: is quite inadequate. The matter lias been urged on the Government by the Superannuation Board and by the various associations, but nothing has been done. ,A .scheme that does not cost the Government one jgenny has actually got so fai, as being put into print in a Bill, but it has been like that for six. or seven years." This scheme provided for raising the widow's allowance to £50 per annum. Every when the matter was blought forward the Government said it had too much other business to attend-to. "These are things that I can, and shall, speak about freely," declared Mr. Huggins, "and when a scheme is prepared which will provide for widows and allow-men to go out of the service with some feeling of security, it seems .that someone who is not a Government servant should take it up and flee that it is carried out. . "It is constantly being stated that we Public servants are being handsomely pensioned by the Government. Last year the income of the Superannuation Fund was £430,000, to which the Government contributed.£B6,ooo, or just about onefifth of the total amount. The Government is contributing one-fifth of the income of oiir pension fund, so when the commercial' men .or the men in the street say the Government is handsomely_ pensioning-Cml servants it is a ctoss misrepresentation of the facts." ' ,