"SNOWBALL PENSIONS."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9126, 27 June 1908, Page 4

"SNOWBALL PENSIONS."

Some astounding figures, relative to the growth of war pensions in America are given in the London "Diily Mail," by Mr Sydney Brooks to illustrate his contention that once oldage pensions are set going, there is no telling where they will slop. Since 1790 the United Stnej has paid away over £700,000,000 in peniiuns, and of this all but about .£30,000 000 has been voted in the Inst l'<rty years. The pension estimates tnudi i' 80,000,000, there are about 1,000,000 pensioners on the roll, and for their support every man, woman and child in the country is taxed 7s a head per annum. It is forty years since the Civil War, yet over 14,000 claims for pensions arising out of it are received every yeav. The number of Spanish war pensioners to-day, ten years after the war, is equal to the number of combatants. Congress devotes a whole day every week to pensions business, and in the last forty years Las passed over a hundred Pension Acts and some 10,000 private Pensions Bills, the latter giving pen-

sions to men who have failed to get them through the department. In a normal year the department deals with some 50,000 claims for new pensions, and some 150,000 applications for increases. Optimistic sentiment and political considerations gave the thing a start. No American expected that the system would be abused. Now it is out of hand. The veterans of the war formed an organisation, which for years has been nothing but "a pension-hunting agency on a vast and pitiless scale." Frauds of various kinds flourish, such as the personation of veterans, the manufacture of disabilities, and women marrying veterans on their death-beda for the sake of the pensions.