PENSIONS FOR WIDOWS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19528, 10 July 1925, Page 4

PENSIONS FOR WIDOWS.

NEW SOUTH WALES SCHEME. (Fkom Gob Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 2. On the Labour Government’s programme is a scheme to provide pensions for widows. The Cabinet has already discussed tho matter, but one of the chief difficulties, of course, is the financing of the scheme. Departmental officials have been instructed to. outline a scheme, setting out the sura that is likely to ho involved on a given weekly pension. It will he a tidy sum, whatever it is. As there aro about 60,701 widows in the State, and as the pension is not likely to be less than £1 a week, the Government or the taxpayers will have to find, for this little humanitarian service, over £60,000 a week. Even £30,000 a week, based on a pension of 10g a week, will not be easy to find, especially as Sir George Fuller’s boasted surplus is now said by Mr Lang to be only a myth, without form or substance. But in its tenderness for widows, in its philanthropic regard for these poor defenceless women, the Labour Party made a feature of this pension scheme, and it is not likely to be so inconsiderate as to offer them a paltry 10s a week. A huge sum will thus have to be found somewhere to give tangible expression to its philanthropy.