OLD-AGE PENSIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10597, 5 March 1895, Page 3

OLD-AGE PENSIONS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,—l consider the Progresuive Liberal Association has made a very great mistake in stating at what age any member of the community should be entitled to a pension. After forty-two years’ residence in New Zealand and Australia, I am of opinion that a parson’s ago should have nothing to do with tha matter. When wo raise a fund for tho benefit of sufferers by a Kaifcangata or Wairarapa disaster, it is tho need of tha applicants that is considered and not their age, and when a soldier or sailor ia pensioned from the Queen’s service it is tho service ho has rendered the country, or the loss he has sustained in the service, or the length of time ha has served, that entitles him to a pension, and not bis present sge. Where ega should be considered is at tha commencement of a peraon’a colonial career and not at the winding up. I wish to be clearly understood that I am speaking from the standpoint of a maa who has earned hia living all ' hia life by the muscles of hia arms and the sweat of his brow, and I can truthfully say that during my Jong colonial experience I cannot ramomber ever having had a mate that Jived to the age of sixtyfive years, and I have worked with come of the (strongest, soberest aud most industrious men that ever carno to Now Zealand. I have one old friend in my mind’s oye now who ;cru , remember the time when hia bullock dray, loaded with timber from the Pajiaaui bush, got stuck to the axle near the spot where the Normal School now stands. That man ia no longer able to do hard work, and ia not yet fiftyfive years of sge; but, according to the resolution of the Progressive Liberal Association, he . must wait another ten years before he is deemed worthy of a X>enaion. I could give other instances, but your asterisk prevents it. A word or two for our better halves and I have done. A woman marries between tho age of twenty and twenty-five, she beava children till she ia forty-five or fifty, and then, according to the Progressive Liberal Association, if she lives another fifteen or twenty years she deserves a pension. What working man’s wife who has reared a large family lives to that age ? Very, very few.—l am, &cj, WORKED OUT.