SOME PENSION CURIOSITIES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 99, 22 October 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

SOME PENSION CURIOSITIES.

For simply being bo.ra, scores of people in this country, says the bcotsman". draw generous pensions, or wvtn their first breath establisn their "right" to salaried sinecures »« thousands of pounds per annum. Pining the past twenty-live years a rum approximating £120,000,000 has thus been payed out of the public purse, and Of the six hundred persons who amongst them have shared the philanthropy not one in a score lias done an hour's work for his money. All that is necessarv is for the recipients to nave bad ancestors who flourished at a .rme when pension prodigality was a question even more acute than it is to-daj. A«, however, we continue to pay tor this past generosity, and look like having a hot controversy on current ©ligations of a similar nature, it should be of Home interest to review the subject and consider a few outstanding items in our peneions bill. Before dealing with some of tiiebigger naval and army pens-ons, a little space might be devoted to one or two disbursements of the freak order. At the present moment there is a Jewish gentleman whom generous Britishers enrich to the extent of £3bo annually, siuiplv because he is in some Way connected with n peer whom ti.e Huns despoiled over two hundred years a"o. Lord Dauvei'iueue was the aristocrat in qucst : on. and religious strife in Germany and France accounted tor bis fallen fortunes. To help mm on to his feet again, William 111. granted the impoverished one a perpetual pen6:on of £2OOO per annum, which sum docile Britisher* continued to paj tor 160 years. By this time—lßs3—Lord Cowper had come into possession of four-fifths of the bounty, and for a pultrv £40,000 he parted with his rights in it to the then Government. Aparentlv the pound a day enjoyed by the Jewish gentleman abo.v mentioned represents most of the remaining fifth. UP A TREE. A fairly well-known adventure of Charles the Second was his hiding up « tree after his escape from Worcester. Much less, however, is it known that to-dav this country pays a pension to descendants of owners of that tree, yrho likewise assisted the Merry Monarch to elude unpleasant pursuers. An amazing pension—commuted some years ago—was the £4OOO per annum Wanted to William Penn and ms heirs for the loss of one of the United States. This tract in question was, d course, Pennsylvania, the whole area of which was granted to Penn as a reward for founding the colony. The Quaker colonist died in 1718, and after the Revolution a half-century later his "estate" was lost to British dominion. As some solace, George the Third, whose own obstinacy had been responsible for the costly rebellion, bestowed on Penn's dependants a lump eum of £130,000, and the pension named m addition. The latter was paid from the year 1790 down to 1884, when the annuity was commuted for £107,800. The strangest part of this transaction was the fact that Penn is said to hare reallv had no direct descendants at all. House of Commons, the Secretary to the Treasury declared that there was no way of finding out the family history. --Double'ss—at that date! LORD NELSON'S PENSION.

Lord Nelson, by the way, was another perpetual pensioner who left no direct descendants. The £SOOO per year grunted to the hero of Trafalgar—a year after his death was given to his brother, and the three succeeding recipients have up to date accounted for £550,000, w'th a title and estate thrown in. At this juncture it might be interesting to introduce one or two contrasts in military pensions. Two thousand pounds per annum was the reward a grateful country bestowed on Sir Arthur Wellesley for winning the Battle of Talavera. an da couple of years later this sum was doubled. After Waterloo came an estate, t*vo splendid mansions, and at sundry times public grants amounting to something like £400.000. The annuities were to continue to the second heir only. Somewhat earlier in history, the Earl of Surrey distinguished i'imself en Floddcn Field, and a grateful sovereign apraised the value of his service lit £4O per annum—" for ever." Perhaps the payments nrght have rontin i'.ed throughout eternity had not the J)uke of Norfolk. a> successor, relinquished all further claims =omo fifteen years ago nn receiving £-W in a lump. A LETTER OF THANKS. Not many weeks ago an alert naval officer who had removed a liermuti siiuUiarino from the aeu> received from an admiring Admiralty a 'letter ol thanks on vellum.' Some further regard may yet be life, but mean-while the incident will serve an a reflection on the prizes of past days. In the year 175)9, Lord Rodney and Iris heirs for ever were granted £2OOO per annum, which is certainly not aciirvy treatment for having sunk a few Spanish sh ; p>. This two thousand is still being paid.

Further back still—in the year lG f )7 —£4ooo a year vw forced upon tu* alien Duke of Sehomberg, by the equally alien monarch, William of Orange. o'-' this huge "pension," £7OO per annum is still being pa:d, the remainder Jir.ving been commuted some years for a lump sum of £192,000.'

William, however, was not withe.t Dutch traits of thrift and economy, albeit he spent a sovereign of his subjects' money for many a penny he saved for them. Hence, soon after he "ame to the throne lie caused numerous offices to he abolished —and eimultaneously created perpetual pensions for loss of the perquisites. Several of these annuities are still being paid, the recipients having refused to commute. Two gentlemen who did commute when this matter was before Parliament »»>me years aco, Sir E. Mostyn and Kir V . Eden, were each in receipt of £'7?6 iter year in lien of offices abolished nearly two centuries previously! In the interval £328,952 had been paid for doing absolutely nothing. ROYALTY* PENSIONS. Ot " royalty" pensions still operative, perhaps the most remarkable are the bulkd amounts which have descended to the Duke of Grafton. The*e an* relies of that Royal profligate Charles 11., whose love affa;rs, in this one instsuce alone, have cost British taxpayers over £4,000,000! At leapt, th : s was the sum .stated before a Select Committee of the House of Commons a few years ago. And it can well be believed, seeing that thr«M> pensions, totalling over €20.000 a year, and numerous trifling hundreds, were settled on lie l issue of Royal amours. Not all of these bounties, by the way, were bestowed bv Charles —at leant in their subsequent ant! present form. During alterations in the country's internal economy certain Excise duties invested in the Orafton familv were abrogated to the Crown. E-ti-

mated at the time to be worth £6870 yearly, to reimburse tiie impoverishes household for their loss, the Government sunk a sum of £229,000 in land and Consols, the interest and rent from which would make up the former increment. Presumably when Consols nnd land values tottered downwards the balance would come from the pal out taxpayer. But enough of '•pensuns,* though stores similar to the above might be quoted. SOME SINECURES. Very briefly we might examine a few salaried sinecures. Take that of the Hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain. The disbursement attached to this post is a modest £4500 a year, and nothing to do for it except at a Jubilee, Coronation, State opening of Parliament, and other similar functions happening seldom in a lifetime. The office, it may he mentioned, has been hereditary for over 800 years. Equally ornamental, though perhaps involving more appearances on duty, is the post of Captain of the Yoemen or the Guard. Twelve hundred a year pays for the ceremonial tasks of this functionary. £2500 annually accrues to the Master of the Horse, surely an anomaly in these days of universal motors. In any case the equestrian duties never amouted to much more than ridin" beside the King on State occasions. Among superfluous offices that have recently been abolished or modified is Master" of the Hawks—another hereditary sinecure. £6OO for feeding the same: £2OO for four falconers; and £4OO for the official who attended to the lot were regular item> in this department up to the accession of cur present King. That for one reason and another manv sue', posts are created, or substituted for others, is fairly well known. Politically such "rewards have been rife in recent years, and even in these days of pleading poverty there would appear to be no abatement.. As a happy hunting-ground for workless salaries the Houses i f Parliament have few equals. Among the older institutions is the post of Se.--geant-at-Arms, with a salary of £I2OO earned for occupying a kind of pew, and listening to the more or less bvil liant oratory of the faithful Common;. Should his chief get tired, a deputy, for a paltrv £BOO a year, willingly comes to the rescue; and should the deputv in turn become exhausted, further relief is found in an assistant deputy, supplied at a cost of £SOO per annum, plus a house allowance, of £150! "Upstairs" we find Black Rod, a gentleman who must find it hard to discover anything to do for his thousand pounds yearly.