POLITICAL PENSIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 21, 13 June 1914, Page 10

POLITICAL PENSIONS.

The political pension scandal in Britain seems to have proved embarrassing for Mr Asquith. Ex-Ministers are granted pensions from £l*2oo to £2OOO a year if they sign a declaration that they do not possess adequate private means. Attention was drawn recently, to the fact that one of these pensioners had died worth more than £60,000, and then a member of the House of Commons mentioned that Lord George Hamilton and Lord Balfour, of Burleigh, two Conservative ex-Ministers, were drawing political pensions although their private incomes appeared to be very substantial. The member asked Mr Asquith to have ■the names of the two lords removed from the civil list of pensioners. The Prime Minister replied that lie was confident the titled gentlemen would inform him if their private means were "such as to render the retention of their pensions inconsistent with the terms on which the pensions were grunted." It was a "matter of honor." "Could not the noble lords be asked to supply tillo grounds on which they opposed the old age pensions scheme?" asked a Liberal. "Will the authorities leave the income limit of applicants for old age pensions to the test of honor .and forbear from making any inquiries into eases that might be doubtful!" inquired a Labor representative. Mr Asquith did not attempt to answer. Curiously enough the two lords seem also to have n-nuiined silent,-at least aa far as the public were concerned.