Te Aroha & AND Ohinemuri News. THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1909. OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4430, 1 July 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha & AND Ohinemuri News.

THURSDAY, JULY 1,1909. OLD AGE PENSIONS.

This above all —to thine own telf be true, And it must follow as the night the dag Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

To-day will come into force throughout the Australian Commonwealth the Old Age Pension scheme. It was decided upon by the Parliament on 10th June, 1908. This beneficient measure for providing for old people was in* troduced into the Southern Hemisphere by New Zealand. Pensions have been paid here since April, 1898, and the action of New Zealand has, since then, attracted world-wide interest and attention. Other places are following our example. Old age pensions have been paid in Victoria since January, 1901. In August following they were paid in New South Wales, but they were not paid in Queensland until Ist July, 1908. Now, from today, they will be payable throughout the whole Australian Commonwealth. In Victoria the maximum rate was 10s per week at first, but it had to be reduced to 8s per week, and it was raised again, six years later, to the original amount of 10s The same sum was paid in New South Wales and Queensland, where no distinction was made in payments to married and single persons. Since the inauguration of the Pensions in Australia the total sum paid was no less than £5,105,817.

The estimated number of persons aged sixty- five in the Commonwealth last year was 161,000, and it is estimated that in 1912 they will be 7 75, 000, in 1918 211,000, and that in 1926 they will number 264,000,

In March, 1908, the number of Old Age pensioners in New Zealand was 13.569, and the amount paid to them that year was £325,199. It is estimated that in less than twenty years from now Australia will be paying £2,320,000 in old age pensions® and expenses of the department. This measure of Old Age pensions raises some very important questions. What is going to be the moral effect on those children who can and should maintain their aged parents, but shunt them upon the State for maintenance ? It is the first duty of children to properly care for their parents, especially when they are old- Parents undergo great labours and privations for their children, and the least which the latter should do when they are grown up, and can do so, is to ade* quately help and defend their parents. Sometimes it is most difficult, if not impossible to do so, because young people get married and have children of their own, the expenses of the family leaving no surplus for aged parents. Often the children, aided by the church to which they and their parents belong, can make provision for parents, but where all these means fail, then the state must step in and provide Old Ago pensions. Society is in no frame of mind to allow old people to die of starvation, or to live in abject want, enduring a living death. The question is forcing itself to the front in England, and in spite of warnings from Conservative politicians, scmething tangible is going to be done. So it ought. The conditions of life there, in the richest country in the world, have been a disgrace to civilisation and Christianity. “The submerged tenth ” has been a serious consideration for some time, and it is found necessary to grapplo with this problem in a business-like way. Lot us hope that wise counsels will prevail, and that such measures will be adopted as will adequately mitigate the want and sufferings of tho agecl poor, without making children callous or injuring the State.

In New Zealand we have sometimes been pained to find reports of police court proceedings where children, well able to make propor provision for their dependent parents have failed to do so until they were compelled by law to do it. Nothing can compensate a State for callousness and hardness of heart bn the part of children towards aged parents. Their neglect of parents is contrary to Divine, natural and political laws. As, according to one of the oldest records, “ A clean thing cannot come out of an unclean,” children who wilfully neglect their parents may depend upon it that their own offspring will manifest to them the same hardness and neglect when they grow old and mod special care. As .they measure '

it will be meted out to them again. We have never known an instance where sons and daughters dishonoured their fathers and mothers, and then enjoyed long life and happiness. By all means let the aged be well provided for, but do not let us see children- who are well able to adequately assist their parents, shunting them Upon the State.