EXPENSIVE PENSIONS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 354, 8 February 1937, Page 3

EXPENSIVE PENSIONS.

OLDEST IW EXISTENCE. BURDENS OF TREASURY. The oldest pension in existence was granted in the year A.D. 1001 and is | still being drawn, says tlie News Chronicle. In that year Ethelred the | Redeless, hard pressed by Forkbeard j tho Dane, was saved by the priest of ’ Pinhoe near Exeter. For the priest i rode to Exeter and brought back a I supply of arrows which saved the I situation. For this service an annual i pension of one mark was settled on ' the parish priest of Pinhoe, which is j duly paid to-day by the Ecclesiastical I Commissioners, Hie present value of the mark being 16s. This record can hardly be beaten, and to find other examples of these undying pensions we must turn on to the reign of Charles 11. This monarch 'jseerns to have been very lavish in tlie matter of pensions settled on his supporters at the expense of the taxpayer. Richard Penderel, who helped him to his hiding-place in tlie famous oak tree, was one of these pensioners, ami (to-day his descendants, some 20 in i number, receive from tlie Treasury I Aheir share of a sum of about £4OO. His aide-de-camp, Colonel Carless, on whose shoulder the King is said to have slept that night, received for himself and his heirs a pension of j £3OOO, which between the years 1660 j and 1822 cost the nation £426,000. In the latter year it was annulled on technical grounds, for tlie grant had been made out of certain Thames dues which, it was claimed, belonged to Trinity House.

Some of these long-si inding pensions have been commuted wholly or in part at great cost to the nation. It required nearly £148,000 in 1853 to commute four-fifths of a pension of £21)00 made by William and Mary to Henry. de Nassau and his descendants. The remaining fifth was bought from one of these by tlie Bank of England, which still received £4OO a year from the Treasury. Case of Nelson. But the strangest case is that of Nelson. What reward did Nelson receive for his services? The usual reply is, a grant of £5OOO for himself and liis heirs. And this answer Is j wrong. What he actually was given was the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by Cambridge University and a prebend’s seat in Canterbury Cathedral. This was In the year 1800, when he was still but little known. In 1805 when Parliament voted a pension of £2OO a year to the victor of ] Trafalgar and his two immediate sue- j cessors, Nelson was already dead. So the pension went to his entirely un-i known brother, the Rev. William Nel- | son. who became tlie first Earl Nel- j son. The amount was subsequently j raised to £5OOO payable to Nelson’s ) heirs in perpetuity. At least that was | the intention. But the wording of the j Act is important. It awards tlie pen- I sion to “ whomsoever hereafter shall j bear the title of J, ord Nelson.’’ And j strangely enough not one of the re- | cipients has even been a descendant of ; Horatio Nelson, the present Earl being I descended from a nephew. And yet j up to date tlie pension has cost the i country half a million pounds. Nelson never asked anything for I himself. There is a tragedy in the ! only request he is ever known to have • made: “ Do not let Emma (meaning ' Lady Hamilton) starve.” For how , could the country grant that?