OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLV, Issue 216, 19 September 1911, Page 2

OLD AGE PENSIONS.

There is one thing in connection with old age pensions worthy of note i (comments the Napier Telegraph). It constitutes a social problem which should receive the most careful consideration by our politicians and public men, and as a fact is somewhat startling. The total population of the Dominion is 1,018,203. Of this number nearly three-fifths are in the North Island. This portion of New Zealand lacks but 47,194 of the number necessary to give it a full three- j fifths of the total population. Yet here is the distribution of the old age pensioners of New Zealand: — ; - North Island 2813 ! South Island ... ... 453U Excess South Island 1721 It seems clear that in this fact we have something calling for explanation. Of course we know, in a general way, that the population of the South Island must include a larger proportion of aged people than does the North Island, but the difference is so great as to take on the form of a puzzle. So far as the birth rate goes, it may be regarded as proportionally about the same in both islands. But this means a continued exodus from the South Island of its young people, if we are to judge, as seems necessary, that the enormous preponder- i ance of pensioners in the South Island proves a somewhat similar preponder- j ance of aged people generally.