The Hastings Standard Published Daily WEDNESDAY, DEC. 15, 1897. OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Hastings Standard, Issue 502, 15 December 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 15, 1897. OLD AGE PENSIONS.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the f;ood that we can do.

Thk Old Age Pensions Bill, as most people imagined would be the case, has been slaughtered by the Legislative Council. The Premier could not liave desired the passage of the Bill, otherwise he would not have inserted the vicious clause making the pensions fixed, instead of annual appropriations. The whole measure was exceedingly crude, and full of incongruities. The suspicion will at once be aroused that the Premier desires to use the Old Age Pensions scheme for electioneering purposes. This suspicion may, or may not be well-founded. But assuming that it is, no person who values the intelligence of the electors correctly will imagine for one moment that they will allow themselves to be hoodwinked by such a subterfuge. The necessity for providing for our colonists in their old age will be admitted by all. What is wanted is something of the form of an insurance—a fund of which all contribute and in which all over a certain age will participate. The so-called Conservative Party (the Conservative is a misnomer) is thoroughly sincere in its desire to see an Old Age Pension scheme introduced. And if the question were made a test one at an election we venture to think that the electors would prefer to place theii prospects in the hands of the present Opposition rather than in those of a Party which will court defeat by submitting a scheme which is as impracticable as it is ill-conceived.