OLD AGE PENSIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21910, 20 September 1934, Page 15

OLD AGE PENSIONS

Sir, —I have read some of the letters on this subject with pleasure, others with regret. I regard the present administration of the old age pension scheme as a studied insult to the aged citizens of this Dominion. Who finds the means to pay pensions? It certainly is not the civil servant. The one who finds most of the means gets least of the spoil, and that stamped with indignity. 'J he public servant receives his pension with honour and privilege, the citizen without honour or privilege. It is not the amount of the old age pension, but the manner in which it is rendered which is such an insult. The citizen is called before a magistrate, thoroughly catechised, and handed over to police supervision, as if he or she were some sort of criminal. The aged pensioner may not leave the country under pain of losing his pension, the pensioners are under endless restrictions as to the work they do and the extra few shillings they might earn. After they have been thoroughly heckled by their servants they receive what is looked upon as a charity dole, instead of that to which thev are justlv and honourably entitled as Ymilders of the State. A more disrespectful of handling a citizen's pension than the present could hardly be conceived. This apparently is the method of treating what should be the honoured aged after their days of usefulness are over. Honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Cholmondeley.