SOME PENSION CURIOSITIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16519, 20 October 1915, Page 6

SOME PENSION CURIOSITIES

SURVIVALS FROM PAST GENERATIONS. For simply being born, scores of people in Great Britain draw generous pensions, or with their first breath establish their " right" to salaried sinecures worth thousands of pounds per annum. During the past 25 years a sum approximating £120,000,000 Has thus been paid out of the public purse, and of the 600 persons who amongst them have shared the philanthropy not one in a score has done an hour's work for his money. All that is iswcessary is for the recipients to have had ancestors who flourished at a time when pension prodigality was a question even more acute than it is to-day. As, however, *e continue to pay for this past generosity, and look like, having a hot controversy on current obligations of a similar' nature, it should be of some interest to review the subject and consider a few outstanding items in our pensions bill. Before'dealing with some of the' bigger naval and army pensions, a little, tpace might be devoted to one or two disbursements of the freak order. At the present moment there is a Jewish gentleman whom generous Britishers enrich to the extent of £365 annually, simply because he is in some way connected with a peer whom the Huns despoiled over 200 years ago. Lord Dauverquerque was the aristocrat in question, and religious strife in Germany and France l accounted, for his fallen fortunes. To help him on to his feet again, William II granted the impoverished N one a perpetual pension of £2000 per annum, -which sum docile Britishers continued to pay for 160 years. By this time—lßs3—Lord Cowper had come into • possession of four-fifths of the bounty, and for a paltry £40,000 he parted ■with his rights in it to the then Government. Apparently the £1 a day enjoyed by the Jewish gentleman above mentioned represents most of the.remaining fifth. —Up a Tree.—

A fairly well-known, adventure of Charles the Second was his hiding up a tree after his escape from Worcester. Much less, however, is it known that today this country pays a pension to descendants of owners of that tree, who likewise assisted the Merry Monarch to elude .unpleasant rursuers. An amazing pensions—commuted some years' ago—was the £4000 ■ per annum granted to William Penn and his heirs for thp loss of one'of the United ?*- The tract in question was, of course, Pennsylvania, the whole : area bf : which was granted to Penn as a reward for founding the colony. The Quaker colonist died in 1718, and after the revolution a halfcentury later his't " estate " was lost, to British dominion. As some solace George' 111, whose own obstinacy had been responsible for the costly rebellion, bestowed on Penn's descendants a lump sum, of £130,000, and the pension named in addition. The latter was paid from the year 1790 down to 1884, when the annuity was commuted for £107,800. The -strangest ■< part of this transaction was the fact that Penn is said to have really had no direct descendants at all. When questioned on the point in the House: of' Commons, the Secretary to the Treasury declared that there, was no way of finding out,the family histoTy. Doubtless—at" that date! ' , —.Lord Nelson's Pension.—

Lord Nelson, by the way, was another perpetual pensioner X who left no direct descendants.' The £6000 per year granted to the hero of Trafalgar—a year after, his death—was given to his brother, and the three succeeding irecipients have up to date accounted for £550,000, with a title and estate thrown , in.

At this juncture it might be interesting to introduce one or two contrasts in military pensions. Two thousand pounds per annum was the reward a grateful country bestowed on Sir Arthur Wellesley for winning the battle of Talavera, and a couple of years later this sum was doubled. After Waterloo came an • estate, two splendid mansions, and at sundry times public grants amounting to something like £400,000. The annuities were to continue to the second, heir only. Somewhat earlier in history of Surrey distinguished himself on Flodden Field-, and a grateful sovereign appraised the value of his service at £40. per annum —■" for ever." Perhaps the : payments might have continued throughout eternity had not the Duke of Norfolk, as successor, relinquished all further claims some 15 years ago on receiving £800 in a lump. — A Letter of Thanks.— Not many weeks ago an alert naval officer who. had removed a Germa*n submarine from the seas received, from an admiring Admiralty—a " letter of. thanks on vellum." Some further reward may yet be his; but meanwhile, the incident will serve as a reflection on the prizes of past days. •• In the year 1799 Lord Rodney and his heirs for ever were granted £2000 peT annum, which, is certainly not scurvy treatment for having sunk a few Spanish ships. That two thousand is still being paid. . . Further back still—in the .year 1679— £4000 a year was fenced -upon the alien Duke of Schomberg by. the eoually alien monarch William of Orange. Of this huge "pension," £700 per annum is still being paid, the remainder having been commuted some years ago for a lump sum of £192.000. '

William, however, was not without Dutch traits of thrift and economy, albeit he' spent a sovereign of his subjects' money foT many a penny he saved for them. Hence, soon after he came to, the throne he caused numerous offic&s to be abolished—and simultaneously created perpetual pensions for loss of the perquisites. Several of these annuities are still being paid, the recipients having refused to commute. Two gentlemen who did commute when .this matter was before Parliament some years ago—Sir E. Mostyn and Sir W. Eden—were each in receipt of £786 per year in lieu of offices abolished nearly two centuries previously. In the interval £328,952 had been paid for doing absolutely nothing. — Royalty Pensions.— Of "royalty" pensions still operative, perhaps the most remarkable are the bulked amounts which have descended to the Duke of Grafton. These are relics of that Royal profligate Charles 11. whose love affairs in this one instance alone, have cost British taxpayers over At least, this was • the sum stated before a Select Committee of the House of Commons a few years ago. And it can well be believed, seeing that three pensions totalling over £20,000. a year 1 , and numerous trifling hundreds, were settled on the issue of Royal amours. Not all of these bounties, by the way, were bestowed by Charles—at least in their subsequent and present form. During alterations in the country's internal economy certain Excise duties invested in the Grafton family were abrogated to the Crown. Estimated at the time'to be worth £6870 yearly, to reimburse the impoverished household for their loss,' the Government sunk a sum of £229,000 in land and consol's, the interest and rent from which would make up the former increment. Presumably when consols and land values tottered downwards the balance would come from the patient taxpayer. But enough of "pensions," though scores similar to the above might be qiuoted.

—Some Sinecures.— Very briefly we might examine a few salaried sinecures. Take that of the Hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain. The disbursement attached to this post is a modest £4500 a year, and nothing to do for it except at a Jubilee, Coronation, State opening of Parliament, and similar functions happening seldom in the course of a lifetime. The office, it may be mentioned, has been hereditary for over 800 years. Equally ornamental, though perhaps involving more appearances on duty,' is the post of Captain of i the Yeomen of 'the Guard. Twelve hundred a year pays for the ceremonial tasks of this functionary. Two thousand five hundred pounds annually accrues to the Master of the Horse, surely an anomaly in the days of universal motors. In any case the equestrian duties never amounted to much more than Tiding beside the King on State occasions. Among superfluous offices that have recently been abolished or modified ,is Master of the Hawks—another hereditary sinecure. Six hundred pounds per annum for hawks that were never bought; £180 for' feeding the same; £200 for four falconers; and £400 for the official who attended to the lot were regular items in this department up to the accession of our present King. That for one reason and another many such posts are created, or substituted for others, is fairly well known." Politically such "rewards" have been rife in recent years, and even in these days of' pleading poverty there would appear to be no abatement. As a happy hunting-ground for workless salaries the Houses of Parliament have few equals. Among- the older institutions is the post of Sergeant-at-Arms, with a salary of £1200, earned for occupying a kind of pew, and listening to the more or less brilliant oratory of. the faithful Commons. Should his chief get tired, a deputy, for a paltry £800 a year, willingly comes to the rescue; and should the deputy in turn become exhausted, further' relief is found in an assistant deputy, supplied at a cost of £500 per annum, plus a house allowance of £1501 "Upstairs" we find Black Kod, a gentleman who must find it hard to discover anything to ,do for his £1000 yearly.