THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, MAY 1, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8129, 1 May 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, MAY 1, 1906.

When the Premier visited Masterton last week he referred on the occasion of the opening of the RenallSolway Home to his scheme for the providing of national annuities, or universal pensions. Mr Seddon's proposal, the details of which be has not yet explained, is, no doubt, not orginal, and it is to be regretted that the Government have not already given effect to some such scheme. A Southern contemporary, in an interesting article, remarks that the Premier in the efforts "he is making to devise a scheme for the establishment of a

system of national annuities, the" Premier should be able to command tne sympathy of most thoughtful people in the community. The old-age pension system, although it is undoubtedly beneficient in its operation, does not by any means satisfy the views of that section of the public which believes that there should be no eleemosyary element in any properly-designed scheme of pensions. If it does not enoourage thriftlessness it is mostly certain that it does not encourage thrift, and the fact that poverty is an indispensable qualification on the part of the applicant has indisputably fastened to soire extent upon the system the reproach tha t t it is virtually an extension of the charitable aid scheme, although we have always discouraged the holding of such a vi«w. A project that aimed at the oreation of a national annuity fund, of which it shall be an essential feature that the participants should voluntarily have been direct contributors, would be of an entirely different nature. It would be a scheme for the due recognition of the exercise of selfdenial and thrift. Any proposal of the kisd would be attractive, and we believe that the oommunifcy, if satisfied of the soundness of the lines upon which the scheme is projected, would cordially approve the legislation neoessary to give effect to it" The journal in question goes on to say that fortunately the colony will not be groping in the dark in its endeavour to frame a workable system of State annuities. Continental nations have, as Mr Seddon is aware, already exploited the field of insuranoe, and in Great,, Britain, and even in our own colony, projects of a description somewhat similai to that whiob, in general outline, Mr Seddon apparently has in view have been discussed at various times. Of the English schemes there is none better known, perhaps, than Mr Chamberlain's proposal. This suggested three methods by which contributors might seoure annuities at 65 years of age. The principle underlying the simplest of them is sufficiently illustrative of the broad nature of the project. On the assumption that a cash deposit of £2 10s was made .by a contributor at 25, succeeded by an annual payment of 10s up to 65, and that the State should credit each depositor with £lO at the date of his 1 deposit, an annuity of 5a per week would, on A 2% per cent, basis, be procurable at 65 years of age. The proposal made by Sir Harry Atkinson in our own Parliament 24 years ago was much more comprehensive than this. It aimed not only at the provisiop of a superannuation allowance of 10s per week for every person from 65 years of age to death, with increased allowances for widows with families, but it also sought to provide sick pay for every person in the community between the ages of 18 and 65. The funds for the successful operation of this elaborate proposal were to be raised by a system of oompulsory insuranoe; and it was the element of compulsion ing the scheme that was chietly fatal to it. Many a person hss no more mind to be made thrifty by compulsion than he has to be made sober by compulsion: he values his freedom more, perhaps, than any prospect, necessarily somewhat remote, of oomfort in the years of his old age. Moreover, Sir Harry Atkinson was in advance of the times in the formulation of any sobeme such as that which he submitted. Mr Seddon is more fortunate in that not only do these earlier schemes provide him with a basis upon which he may build his own project, but he appeals, as well, to a community that is certainly more sympathetic to the idea of a national insurance scheme thanpbe publio in New Zealand was in 1882. If we come down to later days, we find that in 1892 Sir Robert Stout outlined a sobeme which discarded the compulsory element of Sir Harry Atkinson's proposals, and aimed at the provision of an annuity of 17s 6d per week a!; and after the attainment of 60 years of age to all persons who deposited £SO at 25 years of age. / :