THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 13, 1911. OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10422, 13 September 1911, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 13, 1911. OLD AGE PENSIONS.

]jt is somewhat surprising to learn that an arbitrary instruction bias been issued to postmasters in - connection with the payment of oldage pensions. If any postmlaster "has reason to believe" that a pensioner ' "hlais become possessed of mpney or income in excess, of the amount allowed by law in respect of the amount of pension granted, or is in receipt of regular employment, or miisHspendls his pension in drink," he— the postmaster—is to report confidentially to the Cfomtrnisaioners,' and in the meantime refrain from paying tflie pension until „he receives' jinistruotions. It is, as the Chiristchurch Press- points, out, quite right for the Department to take all due precautions, against the wrongful payment of pensions, bait to empower a postmaster to hold back a pension instalment because he hlas< suspicions that the recipient is not entitled to so much, is to place too much authority in his hands. Without considering the possibility that a piostimJaister might, in the case of a pensioner with whom he was noton good terraus, exercise tWa.t power malioiouisily, the rule that payment j of a pension miuat be suspended wflnile' the Department is making enquiries into the ground's! of a postmaster's suspicions—which may be based on nothing more solid than idlle rumour—is wrong. Government Departments dlo not work very fast, •and while the Old Age Pensions De- j pfambment was investigating a case in »flrich,, perhaps quite wrongly, a postmaster had withheld payment, the pensioner might be placed in sad Bttraits. The pension, once gnant-

Ed, ought not to be witblheld, even for a month or two, except on welleatebttisihed and proved grounds.