The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazettes. Published Daily. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1897. OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 144, 17 December 1897, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazettes. Published Daily. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1897. OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Tiik failure of the Old Age Penaions Rill to pass the Upper House was not unexpected, notwithstanding the fact that a proposal to amend it was carried without a division. It is true that a great number of elderly persons will be greatly disappointed, but they will have to wait for another year, or until such a proposal has been formulated as will be acceptable to the great majority of the taxpayers who have certainly the first right to be consulted, and to have abundant opportunity given them to properly consider this very important subject to them and their children to come after them. The wcakwiit point in the rejected Bill was its finance, and in any future similar measure that will have to be its strongest point to ensure its acceptance by tbe people. It was admitted bj the Colonial Treasurer that the first year* payment, had the Bill become law, would have to be deducted from the money intended to be devoted to tbe construction aod maintenance of roads and bridges. A most remarkable anomaly ; the money which would otherwise have gone to pay wattes, was to be spent on those who were unable to work. But this is quite oa a par with a good deal of tbe finance of the colony under tbe present regime. We believe we give expression to a very general feeling when we say that those who were induced to send in their names to the Government in tbe hope (bat they would have shared in the monetary benefits promised nnder the Bill, befors Christina*, arc deserving of and have tbe fullest and most heartfelt sympathy of ail right minded people. " Hops deferred rnaketh the beart sick " and it is a sad reflection on the mutability of human afUirs, that those who in a long course of years iniint bave suffered many sorrows, hardships, and disappointments should have yet another bitter one added to them wbeu least expected.