PENSIONS FOR EVERYBODY?

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 7 March 1935, Page 4

PENSIONS FOR EVERYBODY?

The discussion by the Legislative Council of a suggestion that actuarial information should be obtained regarding the practicability of a national superannuation scheme should have its interest for some of our readers, ■for it was in the correspondence columns of the “Star” that this suggestion was first put forward as a means toward the alleviation of unemployment. The basic principle of this idea, put forward by Mr A. H. Larkman, of Hawcra, was that a means should be found of withdrawing elderly workers from the labour market in order to provide opportunities, for the rising generation. To this end it was suggested that all workers should be retired on pension at 60 years. The “plan” was explained at length in our columns by its author and was also made the subject of pamphlets to members of Parliament and the Legislative Council, besides certain other bodies, including chambers of commerce. It did not create a profound sensation at the tim©? being looked upon as “Utopian” by the majority: It is interesting, however, to see that it has now been brought before the Legislative Council by the Hon. G. J. Anderson, a former Minister of Pensions and that the Leader of the Council, the Hon. R. Masters, who is also a member of Cabinet, has stated that the Government was not unsympathetic and might see its way clear to conduct an inquiry into a universal pension scheme. Mention of the criticism of Mr Larkman’s scheme on the grounds of “impracticability,” recalls that he also put forward a “wage tax” proposal which was similarly criticised locally and ignored generally, but which, nevertheless, came into being some two or three years later. The only serious disagreement with the broad principle of the motion for inquiry put forward by the Hon. G. J. Anderson in the Council was on the point that the universal retiring age should be 60 years; this was eliminated from the motion. The difficulty of obtaining agreement upon this among any group of men can well be imagined but in the Legislative Council, where the average age of members is well over sixty. years, easy acceptance of the principle cannot be expected. When, if ever, the project comes before the country in more concrete form, a great deal of controversy is bound to rage around the fixation of the age for the compulsory retirement of all workers. A famous English man of letters once wrote that as a very young man he believed that all men should be shot at sixty years of age, but he had noticed that, after passing the forty mark himself, the passing of the years found him more than ever inclined to grant his senicus a further reprieve, until, at the age of sixty, he was fully convinced that the average man was only in his prime at that age.