OLD AGE PENSIONERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20602, 28 June 1930, Page 16

OLD AGE PENSIONERS.

Sir. —I would like to propose a schema whereby many pensioners could be greatly helped and at little cost. I am led to believe there are large areas of land on the Coromandel Peninsula fronting the sea, this being Crown lands mining areas. Any holder of a miner's right is entitled to peg an area of one aero for residential purposes. On the west coast of the South Island there are many old miners unlit to work, but still able to scratch a pennyweight occasionally, and this, with their garden, keeps them in fairly comfortable rircumstances. Well, , give a few old miners the chance up here by giving them a hut and an acre fenced in. not too near a township, but near enough to a road or track .whereby provisions could be. delivered to them by the storekeeper, even within a mile or so of their residence. Soma of those who would be glad of such a chance, though not fit to do a real day's work, would manage an amount of prospecting that might be of value to themselves and the country at large, for gold i? what this country .want:; at the present time. If the Government would only fence in the hut and acre, t man could grow his own vegetables and potatoes, which mean a great deal. With a roof over his head, with his garden and with the chance of getting a fewfish or pipis on a beach .and water not too far away many who have no chance of competing against younger men - for light jobs would get much relief. Being a pensioner myself, I think that I understand the position. Akahhtili.