THE OLD AGE PENSION BILL

Pahiatua Herald, Volume VI, Issue 708, 12 October 1898, Page 4

THE OLD AGE PENSION BILL

Now that the so-called Old Ago Pensions Bill has been squeezed through the House it is the duty of the Legislative Council to pass it also. If the members of that body can improve it they should do to, but they will act wrongly and impolitically if they display factious opposition. It is a mischievous measure, but the inexorable logic of facts has proved that the country wants it. Doubtless it might be argued that this assumption docs net fairly follow from the passage of the Hill through the Lower House, but there is no tune for such fine-drawn distinctions to be discussed now. The common sense aspect of the case is that the majority of members in favor of the Bill represent a majority of the electors, and as Parliamentary government involves the majority ruling there is no necessity to discuss metaphysical subtleties that cannot practically affect the position. There was probably never a worse measure forced througlr the Legislature. It is not an old age pensions scheme. It is not a pensions scheme at all. Even the Premier is forced to give evidence to that eff'.ct, when 1 e lias to confess that he dare not pecily thi sources of the money 1 equ red, a d also that he only asks lor a three years’ trial “ to see how it works.” Since the underlying idea of a pension is continuity of right and certainty of payment, any socared system of pensions which does not pr wide for and conserve these is sim[ ly a tortuous financial prevaricate n. Further, a pension involves the theory of services rendered or cash paid. The misconceived abortion which under a false name has passed the House ignores this altogether. If to live in the colony till one is sixty-five entitles to a pension on the ground that during the period of active life services have been rendered to the State, then every man and woman who reaches that age should be entitled to an allowance.

But the Bill forbids this. It provides that destitution of u more or less complete description shall alone entitle to a dole from the State. In other words we have but an amplification of State charity, and the result of that, no matter how the conclusion may grate upon the mind, is pauperism. And it will prove a most mischievous form of pauperism. At present private wealth, subsidised from the taxes, relieves sickness and feeds tiie hungry, whatever be the age of the sick or poor who apply. The relief in the firmer case takes the form of a he spit xl or a doctor pa cl by oh tri - table ail fundi. What is given cam ot therefore he “trucked” for anything else. In the case of the destitute it is the rulo to give food, and although instances of bartering rations for drink or finery have been kniwn, sp aking broadly the money set apart for providing food for those who cannot purchase it for themselves is rightly applied. The House has decided that in future, in the case of all pirsons who are sixty-five years of age, and wuo are destitute, or nearly so, relief shall be accorded in money. Thus the tonpenco or elevenpence per day which it is proposed to dole out will in most instances simply go Into the pockets of owners of rookeries which can only be let to the very poor. The latter must have shelter as well as food, and since it is held that it would degrade them to give them that shelter in Sta'e institutions, tiien those who cater for the poverty-stricken will take as rent for their slum shanties, the bulk of the weekly relief payment. The Bill as it has passed the House is doubly a measure for assisting property owners. As it is now, and as it must ba in any extension of the principle into’ el. i s tendency will be in the dir ction of tak ng from proper y its lia ility to be rated for poor r lief, an l thrusting that liability up n tbe general revenue—mostly d rived through the Cus o ns

—whi’e at chesa ne time th) money thus tak n lrom the general revenue will be diverted into tbe coffers of the ground landlord. To this it may be retorted, as Mr Seldon and some of bis followers have already said, “ If there is anv difficulty in our getting funds we will increase the graduated land tax, and increase the land tax generally.” W ell, a land tax a 3 the source of a fund for providing for the poor would be just. But everybody lias recognised that, and at this time there is in operat on a law which specially taxes land for that purpose. Wliat is forgotten is that there is a limit to taxation. As for the graduated tax, even if it were trebled it would nut provide sufficient to make good tbe annually recurring deficits of New Zu dand finance, and the plain truth is that if it bo possible to run the so-called “ pensions” scheme at all, i' ran only be kept going while we continue to borrow money, or—which amounts to the same tiling—v hile we refrain from opening up the country by m ans of roads, bridges ami railways. But there is a school of self-styled politicaus, must of them lamentably ignorant and invincibly prejudiced, v. bo profe to believe that a land tax can I." made i ito a sort of conj r ng rod with which poverty can he exorcised. The truth is that outside a few unencumbered large estates, in which the profits are not really profits—to use a Hibornicism—but interest on capital invested, very few farmers cmiM remain solvent if their taxation were considerably increased. Take tbe bulk of tho farmers of this province. They are not making fortunes. Many of them barely succeed in making the two ends meet yearly. As for the smaller fry

the dairy farming, market gardening, and small grazier classes—their life is a perpetual toil, and the majority of them do not make artizuii’h wages.

The Ilev. A. W. 11. Compton, speaking on Thursday at tho Church Congress held in Wellington, in referring to the dairy farmers of Taianake, said that their lives and the lives of their children constituted slavery, tho little folk having to get up at, three o'clock in the morning to milk, and being so exhausted during the day that they fell asleep at school. Doubtless this is true, for the lot of the small farmer is a hard one. Well, are these the people who are to be taxed more heavily in order that nnthritt and drunkenness may share with tho unfortunate tiie doles which State charity is to distribute in money ? Because, forsooth, it is degrading to accept rations, but, ennobling to accept elevenpence a day to buy them with ?

The question answers itself. There are only the few big unencumbered properties, the Customs, and borrowing to meet the demands Jor the extra money. As for the Customs, that mo3t artful and iniquitous method of making the poor pay more than their fair share of the taxes, we doubt if any considerable sum can be extorted that way. The burden is now so heavy as only to barely fail to be intolerable. As for the large estates, well, as wo have already said, if the taxation of the large estates were trebled to-morrow, tho result would not come near to meeting tlio annual deficits in our finance. The whole of tbe land tax for tbe year ending March 81st, 1888, was only £267,286, and tbe land and income tax combined only brought in during the same poriod £882,500, while we have had to borrow at tho rate of nearly a million a year for many years. This year a half-million loan is announced, but everybody who lias studied th# question knows that this sum is not enough. It is known, also, that many of Mr Seddon’s followers are advocating a ten million loan. All the lines of evidence convorge to one point. That is, the conclusion that the misnamed “ Pensions Bill ” is at the bottom nothing but a vicious plan for relieving property-owners who are now taxed for the support of the poor ; for ensuring to owners of slum properties the rants demanded from their unfortunate tenants ; and that the only source whence the funds for this can be obtained is loan money. How, then, is it that the idea of old age pensions is popular ? The question is not difficult to answer. The poetry of the notion—to put it that way—is seductive. The lesson of life is that it is a hard thing. From Job, who taught that man is born to trouble as the sparks liy upwards, down to the latest Nihilistic pessimist with his theory that the struggles 6f mankind are best typified by a jar of vipers, each trying to get his bead to the top, there is a consensus of opinion that for the bulk of mankind life must always be hard. That is a very distasteful conclusion, and most of us in our day dreams try to escape from it. We all like to build our castles in the air, and then when wo have provided ourselves with spacious edifices of the kind we like to sit back and perform a similar good work for the world at large. But the poetry of the thing is not worth much. Our chateaux e>i Ks/ia'/iw have a knack of becoming dissipated,

And like the br se'ess fabric of a vision Leave not a wrack behind.

Were it not for this we could manufacture something much better than an Old Age Pensions Bill. We could improve even upon tha old biblical conception of every man fitting under his own vine and fig tree. If the poetry of the tiling would suffice every man might have a thousand a year and an estate. But from Plato to Sir Thomas More, and from him to the founder of the paradise that was to be in Paraguay —New Australia—the hard facts of lifo have been too much for day dreaming. The money which the politicians aro so willing to spend is the result of digging and ploughing, of fencing and building, of toil in factories. The felling of timber, the tending of sheep, tbe culture of the soil, the quarrying of stone, netting the ocean for fish, these are the pursuits which provide tho wealth taxed by the lawmakers and constitution builders. For them to be “ liberal ” both to themselves and to pensioners, is doubtless very gratifying to their refined sensibilities and elevated instincts. But after all they are tied to tho earth by “mere monetary consideration,” and they cannot escape from the clog. The mere profession of benevolence is not enough to prove them trustworthy. Benevolenco would doubtless prompt them to banish hunger and thirst, to cure leprosy, tuberculosis, cancer, and other diseases, and to ensure that all venomous reptiles and insects should be wiped out, by printing some words upon paper and calling it an Act. But just as benevolence cannot do that, except so far as it is enlightoned by science and supported by the dogged labor of the actual worker, so even benevolence if wrongly'directed may do harm in the matter of a Pensions Bill. But it is possible that nothing but experience will compel the general admission of this truth, and therefore, as the House has passed the Bill, we hope the Council will pass it also, and so give the country an opportunity to discover by experience that

Kvil is wrought by want of thought As well as want of heart. —Napier Telegraph.