OLD AGE PENSIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13767, 4 June 1908, Page 4

OLD AGE PENSIONS

The Commonwealth Government is making an experiment with its Old Age Pension scheme, which will either petrify the tendency towards that form of provision against want, so noticeable throughout all British States, or will change everywhere the basis of the movement. In New Zealand the pension is really a charitable allowance under another name., being paid only to persons over a fixed age who have little or no other, means of support. In the United Kingdom the same method is being followed by the Asquith Government. In Australia, however, the Deakin Administration boldly proposes not only to make it a " pension' in fact, payable on demand to every male citizen who has attained the age of 65, and this without regard to the wealth or poverty

of the claimant, but to .lower the age entitling women to the pension to 60, and to pay at 60 to men incapacitated from work; there is also an " invalid pension" scheme attached by.which any person over 16 who is incapacitated will be similarly pensioned. To pay ten shillings weekly to all claimants under this truly daring scheme is estimated, according to Mr. Groom, to require the sum of £1,600,000 annually. But we have had ample experience in New Zealand of the manner in which such estimates are exceeded. Not only did our pension allowances quite fail to reduce the charitable aid charges, as was so confidently anticipated, but they have greatly exceeded all the original anticipations. Considering the great uncertainty which must always attach to the term "incapacitated." it is evident that there is a great possibility for unexpected claims in the Federal scheme. . The amount required will almost certainly be over two millions, and may easily rise to two and a-half millions. Enormous as the estimate is, it is, therefore, probably far below the amount which will have to be provided. And how are these enormous sums, which representcash outgoings for which there is no counterbalancing incomings to be provided This is a problem which has to be faced, not merely, by the Deakin Government, but by any statesman who takes Mr. Deakin's place after the present Premier resigns, as he has -announced his intention of doing shortly. Most legislative acts do not greatly commit a country, and do not seriously involve future Administrations. B«t a Pension Act commjts a country probably more than any other measure, and involves every future Administration which is not prepared to repeal it. And pension systems cannot be repealed as easily as they can be instituted. The Federal scheme and its working will therefore be watched with absorbing interest by the statesmen of every country, not the less so because the theory of universal pension has had many able champions, and has been advocated with arguments which are very hard to answer, excepting by the debatable reply that it is not practicable owing to the great cost.