Segar. — The Population of Neio Zealand. 465 



about £400,000 per annum, or double what it is costing at 

 present, while the resources of the colony are not likely to be 

 very much greater than they are to-day. But in any case the 

 cost of the scheme must continue to grow rapidly, and far 

 more rapidly than the population ; it is because of the small 

 proportion of old people that it is at present as small as it is. 



Though I have brought forward this reflection on the old- 

 age-pension scheme, I would not be understood to be arguing 

 in any way against the principle of the scheme ; but it is 

 right that its probable future cost as well as its present cost 

 should be known. When the scheme was introduced an esti- 

 mate of the growth of the cost of the scheme for at least a 

 generation to come should have been made, so that the people 

 of the colony might have known what was involved in the 

 future as well as the present, and not have acted on the rough 

 assumption that the cost of the scheme would increase only 

 in proportion to the population and its resources. Yet there 

 is a chance of the community being able to bear the greater 

 cost of the future as easily as it bears the present cost, 

 for, with a smaller proportion dependent on it by reason 

 of immature age, it would be well able to maintain the pro- 

 vision recently made for a greater number of those dependent 

 on it by reason of old age. Whether it should do so in a 

 manner such as to discourage thrift even on the smallest 

 scale is the question of most importance perhaps in connec- 

 tion with the scheme, but one of a character not falling 

 within the province of this paper. 



Other Consequences of Change of Age-distribution. 

 The changes in age-distribution that are taking place in 

 New Zealand and elsewhere, and the causes contributing 

 thereto, are full of interest in connection with many other 

 matters of very practical import. 



The prospects of insurance companies must interest most 

 of us. Now, insurance companies as a whole have hitherto 

 enjoyed, especially in these parts, receipts from premiums 

 greatly in excess of the outgoing payments due to deaths 

 and maturing of policies, and this has i-esulted in a rapid 

 accumulation of funds and the establishment of vast capitals. 

 This is due to the great convergency in the age-distribution of 

 those assured, the younger section of those assured being 

 much more numerous in proportion than the older section, 

 and this is, as in the case of the general population, due to 

 continued growth. Unless this growth can be kept up, un- 

 less companies can continue to obtain, year after year, a 

 greater volume of new business, the inequalities in receipts 

 and payments on account of members must get less and less. 

 It is not remarkable, then, that so many companies should 

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