South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2412, 9 December 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1880.

What shall we do with our charitable institutions? is one of the pressing questions of the future. With regard to two of the principal vagrants the Government has hit upon a capital plan. The State has resolved to get rid of the hospitals and charitable institutions by. marrying them to the local bodies. Although there has been some preliminary coquetting, there is no escape from the contemplated ceremony. With the local bodies it is not a matter of choice, they must take them “ for better or worse.” In taking them over they will have the blessing of the State, and a few pounds to start housekeeping with, and then they will he left to their own resources. No considerate colonist can blame the State for getting rid of its sources of annoyance. Hospitals and other charities ought never to have been State institutions. Under local control they will receive more attention, and they are likely to be more economically managed than they could possibly he by the State. But there are other charities besides hospitals and benevolent asylums to be dealt with. The foremost charity of the state requires to be considered. What is to be done with the Pension List? This is a difficult problem. It may not deserve very delicate handling, hut it will he treated, like an old coat or a basket of eggs, very tenderly. The Pension List of New Zealand stands at the top of all our national charities. Whether we ought to be proud or ashamed of it is another thing. It has been carefully cultivated by successive Governments, and it has grown like a young giant. Under Sir Julius Vogel and Major Atkinson it has flourished wonderfully. It bears its trophies like a Christmas tree. At the annual distribution there is no scrambling. The prizes are not like the schoolboys’ prizes, fed by subscriptions. That expert individual, the State pickpocket, does the

work expeditiously and' well. The public contribute involuntarily to the grand pauper consultation, but the game is one o£ deliberate robbery not one of chance. Under and over, the three card trick, or the pea and thimble are fair and square compared to the pension lottery. These Ligurian bees, the Customs officers, gather the honey from the tea, sugar, and tobacco of the people, and hand their sweets over to the Treasury, from whence they are passed, like fragments of the honeycomb, to the favored pensioners. In this way £22,000, or the interest on a half a million of money is annually divided. Of course this money is not misappropriated. Does it not go to support the destitute ? And who are the destitute —the poor that are always with us? We will recite a few of the names and amounts :—A. C. Strode, Resident Magistrate, £538 ; A, Domett, Secretary of Crown Lands, £559 ; J. E, Smith, Registrar of Deeds, £484 ; Hon W. Gisborne, £44G ; Dr Pollen, Jack-of-all-Trades, £4lB 15s; G. E. Elliott, Secretary Post Office, £400; Judge Kogan, £4OB. These are only a few gems from the handsome necklace of widows and children that are suspended like a leaden yoke round the necks of New Zealand taxpayers. If we include the members of the Legislative Council —who are virtually State pensioners—among the unfortunates, we have an additional amount of from £IO,OOO to £15,000 annually withdrawn from the consolidated revenue for charitable purposes.

This pension question the country will have to take up if Parliament fails to do so. The charity which the pension list represents, is not, like hospitals and benevolent institutes, a necessary infliction. It is one of those superfluous growths for which there is but little excuse and no necessity. It cannot he urged that the widows and children in the Legislative Conncil, or such destitute waifs, as Messrs Strode, DometfJ Dr Pollen and Co. have contributed towards the life annuities they enjoy. While they* were in the employment of the State they were very liberally paid for the work they performed, so that the charity now doled out to them can hardly he considered an expression of gratitude. It will doubtless he urged that the annual prize money dealt out to this hand of venerable orphans has been settled by Act of Parliament, and cannot therefore be interfered with. But if the disease as it stands admits of no remedy, we can at all events keep it within judicious hound, and allow it to die a natural death. If the people put down their heels firmly on this pension business, its disappearance can only be the matter of a generation. If they take no action, and if Parliament neglects its plain duty, the pension list will flourish. As the widows and orphans drop off, fresh widows and orphans gleaned from the members of the Civil Service, who have grown destitute on enormous salaries, will he added. Thus the blanks will he filled up, and instead of growing smaller the charity will become abnorrnaally developed. If the the State pension list is to be gradually made a thing of the past, the country must speak out.