Old Age Pensions in New Zealand.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8155, 3 April 1906, Page 2

Old Age Pensions in New Zealand.

The High Commissioner for the Defence. LONDON, February 24. Writing to the Morning Post, Mr W P. Reeves, the High Commissioner for New Zealand, says:—"You published a leading article on old age pensions systems and schemes, the effect of which was to show that all pensions laws, whether suggested or in working, are open to serious objections. In the course of this not very exhilarating task your leader writer aimed a blow or two at the New Zealand law, curtly dismissing it as a scheme by which thrift has been discouraged and fraud stimulated. A pensions system like that which is doing its good work in our colony is not, however, to be dispossd of in this off hand fashion. Even if it were fair—which it certainly is not —to ignore entirely the good side of a social reform, and dwell only on its weak points, I could still show that your

picture of the seamy side of our law L unduly gloomy." After summarising the main feature/ of the New Zealand system, Mr Reeve; goes on to remark: —■" You say that thii must operate to discourage thrift be cause persons after saving enough t< secure an income of 10s a week wil have no object; to go further. Do yoi seriously think that a large number o New Zealanders. energetic and provi dent enough to save a substantial sum will be seriously checked in thrift bj any such narrow calculation ? Om experience of our colonists is verj different. The more thrifty and sue cessful among the poorer classes are spurred on by more ambitious motives When they have accumulated capital thev want to take a step up in life—tc embark in business, to extend some little enterprise, to buy land, to make a comfortable home., They are not the sort oi people to abandon their dreams and change their methods of life through fear of becoming too rich to be entitled to 10s a week in extreme old age. Ten shillings a week when you are very old does not seem a very dazzling or gilded dream to a thrifty or energetic colonist in youth or middle age. It will not demoralise him. " There is, however, another and humbler class," continues Mr Reeves, "among which a limited pension may, and, I believe, does act as a very strong encouragement to thrift. I refer to thai weaker class which in most countries does not save at all, largely tbroiigh a feeling of sheer hopelessness. What is the use of saving for old age when your most extreme self-denial may possibly secure you an income of 3s or 4s a week? To a class so circumscribed, and especially to the women amongst them/ a pension scheme like ours is a veYy strong inducement indeed to practice such thrift as will enable them to supplement their little pension with a few shillings more. On the balance, therefore, I feel quite clear that the Now Zealand law does encourage thrift. Not that this was the object for which it was passed. Its highest aims were to lessen distress, to give a brighter outlook to life, and to diminish the anxiety which embitters the life of the. poor. It it has attained these objects—and it has—it may claim to be a good law apart from the question o£ thrift altogether. " Next the High Commissioner quotes copious statistics showing that there, has been no discouragement of natural but the contrary, on the basis of savings bank,' life insurance and friendly society figures. \ % - To this communication the morning Post appends the following footnote:-— " We are very glad to print the favorable testimony given by so eminent an authority as Mr W. P. Reeves to the successful working of old age pensions in New Zealand. Wo certainly had no intention whatever to condemn the New Zealand scheme as a whole; we used it merely to illustrate the dangers of tho particular provision reducing the pension' in certain cases on account of other income." V