PENSIONS FOR CLERGY.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18409, 16 June 1925, Page 5

PENSIONS FOR CLERGY.

A SYSTEM OF ANNUITIES. Pensions for tho indigent clergy—and many clergymen of all denominations miist necessarily become indigent while the existing scale of remuneration continues—is (says tho London correspondent of the Melbourne "Argus") a problem of perennial interest. In Britain, two schemes arc being worked out with a view to meeting tho evil, one in connexion with the Church in Wales and trio other by tho National Assembly in England. Tho Welsh scheme is the more generous, and, therefore, the more interesting. It is based upon two elements—(l) an annuity purchased by the clergyman; (2) an augmentation grant provided by tho Church itself. Tho clergyman buys an annuity by an annual payment of £5, made until the ago of seventy. Thus a curate .-joining at twenty-four obtains an annuity of £Bl 16s at seventy. This annuity is secured by a policy taken out for him with the Ecclesiastical Insurance Office, there ate arrangements for the return of premiums if the clergyman dies earlier. The augmentation is generally one-half of the standard stipend of £3lO, so the standard augmentation is £ls. This is offered at seventy or after forty years of service. If less than forty vears have been given, the {'rant is diminished by £2 a year, with the proviso that the minimum grant shall be £l3O a year. A Welsh clergyman can thus look forward to a pension of £236 a year at seventy, towards which he will have contributed £Bl 16s. Those who join the Welsh Church late in life receive proportionately lesser grants. The equivalent scheme of pensions tor British clergy, as revised by the National Assembly during the recent spring session, requires each clergyman to pay an insurance premium of between and £l3, and there is no return of premiums if the annuitant dies before he is seventy. If the English clergyman breaks down after thirty years' work, lie receives only £9O, in comparison with tho £172 due to his Welsh brother. At seveutv, a curate who was ordained at twenty-three will receive £2OO, compared with the Welsh grant of -£236. Finally, the English scheme does nothing for clergymen who are already over fiftysis years of age. It is satisfactory that the "authorities are tackling a problem which has long been overdue for settlement, but so far as England is concerned they have not done enough.