The Wanganui Chronicle, AND PATEA-RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER " NULLA DIES SINE LINEA " TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22,1896.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12222, 22 September 1896, Page 2

The Wanganui Chronicle, AND PATEA-RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER " NULLA DIES SINE LINEA " TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1896.

————— ■ OLD AGE PENSIONS. The sham-earnest style of the' Premier may deceive the country, but it does not now deceive the House. Very often, when he indulges in most exaggerated language in order to persuade members that he feels intensely about some measure, his own followers simply sit back and laugh. They know how much of humbug there is in his simulated feeling. ;His attitude on the Old Age Pensions Bill was a 1 case in point. When he introduced it he described it as the Bill of the session,and indicated/that he meant to pass it. Yefc nobody believes that he meant what he said, or expected what he indicated. The feeling that the wliole thing was a sham is not held only by his opponents, who might be supposed to be only too willing to judge him harshly, but by his own followers, who treated the whole thing as a joke. When the Bill was in Committee, and the Premier safc at the table in charge of it, it was mainly ■ Lis own followers, assisted by the members of tlie Left Wing, who kept up the running fire of comment, and who riddled it with amendments from every quarter. They were perfectly satisfied that Mr Seddon did not wish the Bill to pass, and that ill he wanted was to have it so amended that he would be able J to throw it up in real ov assumed B disgust, and be able to pretend to the , people of New Zealand that he had doDe all tbat man could do to get f the measure through. We are asl sured that Mr Seddon's most faithi ful followers- declare that he never meant and never wanted the Bill to D pass. It is only those who t are in the House and who have ' the opportunity of studying his tactics from day to day who can tell a when he is shamming and when ho P is in earnest. Polticians and journ i, alists at a distance may be excused if they are not able to discern between the real and the genuine by a mere perusal of the Premier's speeches. The Auckland Star, for instance, innocently regards the Old Age Pensions Bill of the Premier as a genuine measure, but nevertheless : it does not fail to perceive that the financial difficulties in the way of • the adoption of anything like a satisfactory scheme are very great indeed. It favours the adoption of the Bill as introduced, on the ground that " once there, whether successful or not, it would have opened the road for more perfect legislation in that direction." "It was," continues our contemporary, " bound to be experimental in some degree, and itwas therefore advisable that in tho . first place we should experiment on i a partial scale, and not in a wholesale manner, involving an expenditure I we could not hope to meet." The. Star's comments are worth noting, inasmuch as it is the representative liberal organ of Auckland, and has nevej? been suspected of favouring • capitalism. Referring ,to the proposal to extend tho pension jto everybody over sixty-five years of age, instead of to those only who may be iu - receipt of an income of m ore than fifty pounds a year, the Star comments sharply upon the apparent indifference of politicians of the G. W. Russell stamp to where the enormously 1 increased revenue is to come from for ' the purpose. "How," says our contemporary, *' would Mr Russell find that £600,000 a year? From what he is reported to havo said on the second reading of tho Bill, he would give an additional turn or so to the taxation screw. But we would ask, has not that screw been turned sufficiently already ? At this moment the New Zealand taxpayer has to disburse perhaps more than j any other man in the world, the t Westralian excepted. The average t taxation per head in this country is 1 now £3 14s 6d, as apainst £2 3s 3d in Victoria, £2 18s 3d in New South • Wales, £2 17s 4d in Tasmania and b £1 18s 8d in the United Kingdom, " Are we not taxed enough already P But Mr Russell would not lay the j burden of this taxation for one r special object on the whole com- ' inanity. He would put it on the landowners. At present the land i tax amounts to £271,000, and this s is levied only upon landjioicjings of } i greater value than £500. JBCe would clap tbo other £_ 700,000 P3

to it so that, roughly speaking, for every £1 tlie landholder now pays, he would pay £4. Supposing the land could bear such a terrible drain, does it not seem that the charitable element, would enter into a scheme by which the necessaries of the aged of the whole community were provided for out of the pockets of a class? But no man in his senses believes that the land could stand it. Men like Mr Russell have ' a way of speaking as if tlie land- ; owners were all nabobs. Do we not ; all know that the majority of tbe . landlords are struggling settlers, that they have the greatest difficul- ' ties in making ends meet, and that [ the taxation they now bear is quite l heavy enough for them ? And Mr ■ I Russell knows it, too. But he is not the mouthpiece of the settlers, and he must speak those things i which are agreeable to the electors I I on whose support he relies." The , 1 debate in the House, such, as it was, ; and the divisions tbat followed, were to this extent satisfactory, that they proved the universality of the sentiment in favour of old age pensions. Both sides of the House assented to the principle, but the interchange of opinions to which the Bill gave rise made it clear that the scheme wants much more careful thinking and working out before it can safely be embodied in the Statute Book of the colony. (