ON DESERVING COLONISTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10902, 5 November 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

ON DESERVING COLONISTS.

[IST COLONTS.] Tun old ago pensions scheme being now the law of the land, it will be the duty of all old and deserving colonists to avail themselves to the fullest extent of the beneficent provision that is made for them by a grateful country. In doing so it is needless to say that the provisions of the measure are to be interpreted in the most liberal way, and shame upon the man that would interpose an obstacle in the way of any old and deserving persons, who, feeling that they liave borne the burthen and heat of the day, have a natural longing to sit down in the evening under then vines and their fig trees, without anyone to make them afraid. The preamble of the Bill is quite explicit as to the persons for whom the kindness is intended, and though in the different clauses restrictions may have been sought to be imposed by bloodless Tories, nobody can doubt that these were allowed, because it was known that they could easily be set aside in operation, and that the spirit of the Act would reign. The preamble says "it is equitable that deserving colonists, who, during the prime of life, have helped tc beat the public burdens of the colony by the payment of taxes, and to open up its resources by their labour and skill, should look to the colony for a pension in tlieii old age." Now, who can interpret this so well as yourself? Are you a deserving colonist? Of course you,are; nobody knows that so well as you do. What does the Government know about it? Have you not paid the taxes? Have you not helped to bear the burdens of the colony? Have you not opened up its resources by your labour? Of course you have; and by the same o' token it is equitable that you should look to the colony for a pension in your old age. The law says so; it is equitable, that is to say, it is just and right, and who are you that would attempt tc dispute the equity of the thing, or do anything to help the enemies of the people to baulk you in the attainment of what the law has said is your just right? To be sure there is a clause that says you ought to be 65; perhaps you ought; perhaps" you ought to be 70 for the matter of that; perhaps you are only 55, but what has that to do with it? You are a deserving colonist, you • have borne the burdens and paid the taxes and the rest, so take vour bill and sit down quickly and write

65. The fact is, you may be 65 foi anything you know to the contrary. You cannot possibly swear about it to your own knowledce. You were present, it is true, on the" interesting occasion of your advent, but you have not the slightest recollection of the occurrence, and can only speak from lieai say at the best. Now, what a fool you would be to swear that you are only 55, when you may be 65, or over, so far as your personal knowledge

CO6S« your mother was here, or the doctor, ° If your mother was here, or the doctor, or Sairey Gamp, they might tell sometlimg about your birthday, but they are not here, and for you tc rely on hearsay, and make declaration or oath on the subject, would be a violation of all the laws of evidence. You see from this that you are entirely free from moral responsibility m respect of your age, for vol' know nothing about it, and in saying 65 instead o * » mav be making a correct shot m the dart for' anything you really know to the conh And the Government arc just as much at sea as yourself, or more. What can hey know about your age? They were not theie when von uttered your first squall, my may look at your teeth, or reckon op your wrinkles, or notice the colour o your beard But these evidences are all illusory, and cannot for a moment be taken as against your own word. So° now you know the ground you stand on- and if regarding a date of which you know nothing with certainty yourself, and everybody else knows if possible less, you aro Tito rive away a deserving colonist, who has Dome the burthens and paid the taxes and the rest, then you are simply a

fo ?l' is true the Government may . " ' B £,(> nasty and hunt up vour last census papers, and find that you put down as 53. But that is nothing. You were looking for a billet at the time, ™d people don't like to employ very old men sc you were passing as younger than you were. It was improper you know, but what is a poor man to do when lie is Government won't be too hard on you in' the circumstances, and besides you had riven the matter of age much thought at tfie time, or somebody else had filled in the column without asking you,

and made a shot at your age. In fact, you | had never a thought of your age in those times, as it was a matter of indifference, but now that the interests of a deserving colonist are at stake, you have been hunting up the tablets of your recollections, and remember what your mother told you, and you are just 65 last birthday. As to baptismal certificates, or any such records of early youth, such an idle quest will soon be abandoned by the Government; for there is not one in "ten thousand that, during a long lifetime, has been carrying about his baptismal certificate in his boxes, or could procure one from the registrars, and records of an olden time, iD which such records were never made. And should the Government, suspicious of the freshness of your looks, be dubious still, and ask you for substantiation of your statement at the hands of another, you will be a pool fellow indeed if you have not some old crony whose recollection of your birthday is as clear as your own. And so it conies that there is not a " deserving colonist" in the colony of 50 years of age or upwards, that is really desirous of sitting down under his vine and his fig tree, who will be necessarily debarred by his age from the enjoyment of comforts to which ho has an equitable right in the spirit of the preamble, from having paid taxes and opened up the resources of the country by his labour and skid.

And it will also come that we shall have in New Zealand the jolliest lot of old men and women to be found in the whole world, and tourists and globe-trotters will come from afar to our wonderland, and among its greatest wonders, they will tell of the vigorous longevity of the inhabitants, and of the wonderful salubrity of a climate in which the aged seem to renew their youth like tho eagles. In this way those that exploit the Act in the way I have pointed out, will have the happy consciousness that they are doing a patriotic service the while, in proving the remarkable salubrity of our clime, a feeling that will doubtless enhance the gratification of a deserving colonist, when he sits down under his vine and his fig tree, as a pensioner, after the burthen and heat of the day, But there is another barriei as stupid as it is futile, which the Tories attempted to set in the way of deserving colonists, but which every colonist will be able to bound over as with a vaulting pole; I mean the limitation of a 25 years' residence. It is obvious that there is many a deserving colonist who has not been quarter of a century in the colony, and yet he has been bearing the burthens and paying the taxes, and opening up the resources by his labour; and it is equitable that he should look to the colony for a pension in his old age; as says the preamble of the Act. And the matter is simple as simplicity itself. There has been a period, say, only of 10 years since your actual first arrival; well, take your bill and sit down quickly and write 25, .and you leave it to the Government to prove that you had not been in the colony for the 15 years before; and all you have to do is sit tight and say nothing. But you are, perhaps, a simple, unsophisticated person, and you come to me, who have opened an office in Vulcan Lane, as a pension agent, and I will see you through. As you are doubtful about the time of your residence, my terms are £5, or a right to draw your first five monthly instalments, and on the principle of no cure no pay. You say it is 10 years since you arrived in New Zealand? Nonsense, man; you were 15 or 16 years down South before that, and if the Government questions your statement, they can go and look for proof. And let us see what thoy will have to find to bowl you out. They must drop upon somebody that is willing to come forward against you, who knew you in Australia or England, or the United States, during the 15 years in question, so as to show the impossibility of your being then within the bounds of the colony. But the Act allows ot two years' absence out of the 15, and you can explain that it was in one of those intervals of permissible absence you were seen in foreign parts; so the doctrine of chance would make it as 999 to 1 that 110 such continuous absence could B5 proven against you. But 1 can tell you the ship you arrived in, with the when and the where of it all. See litre, in these ancient files of newspapers, which are the tools of my trade in pension brokering. You arrived in the Sea Nymph, at Dunedin, on October 20, 1872; see here, there are 14 passengers named with 34 others; you were one of the others. This filo is a proof of the arrival of your ship, and it is for the Government to disprove the details. See? You did not know that you had been six-and-twenty-years in the colony, but old men's memories are fngacious, and for a deserving colonist like you, who have borne the burthen, etc., it would be a pity that von should be deprived of your equitable right to the vine and the fig tree, for the lack of a little memory. I provide the memory as part of the contract, and you have but to hitch up your breeches, keep a stiff upper lip, and go in to win. Yes, the old age pensions scheme will be a happy hunting ground to the artless and unsophisticated old boys and girls of the colony, and a cynosure of attraction to hundreds, if not thousands, of others oversea, who will come to cast in their lot with us for a year or two, so as to qualify for the vine and fig tree for the evening of their days; while to the pension agent it mil be a perennial fountain of wealth. All the other little adjustments of incomes and exemptions will be easily made when the two great crucial points of age and term of residence are adjusted by the pension agents; for on these two hang all the law and tho profits.