STATE PAY FOR SPINSTERST

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17014, 12 April 1923, Page 10

STATE PAY FOR SPINSTERST

Non know her well the old maid who ha» slaved all her life, and who. now that old age is upon her. ami shg can J.o longer earn the miserable pittance ipon which she has existed, tnrns helpless, hopeless, desperate eyes upon the future, wondering what will become of her. She hovers around the background of every home. So familiar are yam with the sight of the shabby little creature in her decent, worn clothes that it is only at times that you realise how pitiful she i».' She has been no butterfly, fitting gaily from flower to flower in her youth instead of saving for her old age. AIL her life she has toiled, but she has always had to do the kind of work that is ill paid, and that leaves no margin of profit for pleasure or for saving. She isn’t clever. She has no initiative. Often she has little education. and she was never trained to any profitable trade or profession. Her unskilled hands have always fumbled at their task. and. struggle as they would, have never kept the wolf a foot away from the door.

Yet «till she struggled on. Soldiers have been decorated on the battlefield fer loss heroic deeds than ATiss Alary performed when she staggered up to answer the bell, of her tiny shop or go down on her poor # rheumatic kuees to scrub a floor. Sometimes she gave the best years of her life, the years in which she could have safeguarded her old age by marrying or by acquiring some profitable occupation, to her family. There vas an old father, or au :.ld mother, who had to be cared for. There wero jeers and years iri which she was chained. to an invalid’s chair. Wars and years in which night and day rile was the hapless victim of the selfish, querulous whims of ag©Lovc railed to her, hut she could not fellow because of the clutching liandn that held her buck. Ambition beckoned to her. but she could not take her own it the expense of the helpless old people v.ho depended upon her. And so youth faded and opportunity shut its doer in her face. "Perhaps her youth was spent in taking care of other people’s children. There were orphan nieces and nephews who must have known the cold charity of asylums except for her. She took them in, fed them, clothed them, educated their., gave them their start in the world. She worked tirelessly, and pinched and economised. TOIL’S REWARD. And now she has come to tlie end. She is literally worn out. Her strength is gone. Her feeble bauds can toil no longer. She has slaved all her life, and has never been able tc do more than barely exist. She. has nothing saved up. She has no children to take care of her. AYhat' are we going to do about itF Send lier to The workhouse ? Poor Aliss Alary has her pride, and that would be a fate worse than a thousand deaths to her. She has given her life in honest service to her country, and the country owes her support in her old age. not as a charity but as a right. When these women who have toiled, so faithfully reach the age when they can no longer work, they should be pensioned by the State. They should he made secure, with something more than a hare pittance from want in their declining days. Thus could society pay a very small part of its debt to a class of women to which it owes much.