OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXXI, Issue 10309, 30 March 1894, Page 6

OLD AGE PENSIONS.

TO THE EDITOR, Sib, —By tbe remarks of a correspondent, u Scapticus,” in your last Wednesday’s issue, I would presume that be knows little or nothing , about friendly, eocieties, or is a very lukewarm member of some society. He says he never knew that friendly societies made provision for old age or poverty. Sad would he the state of the colony at tbe present day if it was not for such organisations, and there would be hundreds more of old men requiring relief if they were not at present receiving come allowance through their clubs. And then again, how much greater would the taxes be for charitable aid had it not baea for the instrumentality of friendly societies. In answer to the writer’s remark about members losing benefits through their inability to pay, X may state that I never knew a society that had not a fund for the purpose of relieving distressed members, and I am sure that if the men whom “ Scepticus” knows, of had made known their wants to their brethren they would have been relieved. I know members of some societies who expect to get 200 per cent for the trifle they have to pay weekly, and because they have paid regularly for twenty or thirty years and never been unfortunate enough to require the Lodge allowance refuse to pay any mors; then when benefits cease it more than often follows that they want it. This is the reason why some people become sceptics to friendly societies, and no doubt why the writer in question takes his nom de plume. This is somewhat off the subject of pensions to bid age, but as “ Scepticua ” made such a misleading attack on friendly societies and their assistance to members in old ago and those in distress, I am compelled to write in this wise. I would like to ask your correspondent how those people who could not “pay their Lodge dues—through being out of work and in distress—could afford to pay an extra duty on such necessaries cf life as tea, sugar, &c., to provide a fund for old age pensions, and yet may have to pay on such for twenty or thirty years," and never receive benefits. There is no doubt that this subject of “Old Age Pensions” was the outcome of soma kind people with thrifty hearts, and in whatever form it is decided oa it will be a case of “ robbing Peter to pay Paul,” and to many who had no thought of a rainy day. Why are so many folks in the workhouses and the Old Men’s Homes all over the world ? Mostly because they spent all their earnings in drink. It is hard for persons to ho extra taxed to pay for the keep of such men, and this shows the necessity of either being in a friendly society or for , a system of compulsory Government insurance for one'to pay into when they are able, to reap the reward in old age.—l am, &c„ FRIENDLY. SOCIETY.