464 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



an annual number of births equal to about 20,000, the total 

 population would reach ultimately only about 1,100,000, and 

 of these no less than 120,000, or 10 - 9 per cent, of the whole, 

 would be old people eligible in respect to age for old-age 

 pensions — i.e., the number of old-age pensioners might be ex- 

 pected to increase somewhere about fivefold while the whole 

 population increased only about 30 or 40 per cent. Unfortu- 

 nately, as we have seen, there is too great a chance that the 

 annual number of births will long remain under or about 

 20,000, and, as long as it does, so will the proportion of old 

 people to the whole population tend towards this limit. 



But not only have we a large proportionate increase in the 

 cost of old-age pensions to expect from this source, but we 

 must expect in the future a larger percentage of the old 

 people to receive old-age pensions than have hitherto taken 

 advantage of them, and this for several reasons. The 

 majority of old people of the present day arrived here in the 

 early days of the colony, and it must be expected for several 

 reasons that of these a greater proportion will have succeeded 

 in attaining easy circumstances and providing for old age than 

 will generally succeed in so doing among a population living 

 through times of more normal conditions. Again, there will 

 be gradually a smaller and smaller number of old people 

 disinclined to accept pensions because of their savouring of 

 charity and poor-relief, and a smaller and smaller number 

 who will be disqualified on account of not having lived the 

 requisite minimum number of years in the colony. Moreover, 

 recent years have been very prosperous, and when commer- 

 cial depression once more returns to us the old will suffer 

 with others, and many now barely provided for by invested 

 savings or supported by relatives out of their surplus will 

 then feel the need of other help, and the State is likely, just 

 when it is itself most in need of relief, to have to dispense 

 that commodity to a greater extent than ever. 



The report of the Registrar of Old-age Pensions for the 

 year ending 31st March, 1900, estimates that 41-4 per cent. 

 of the old people of the colony, exclusive of Maoris and 

 Chinese, were then in receipt of pensions, but not all of these 

 were receiving full pensions. 



Now, in making estimates for the cost of old-age-pension 

 schemes in England and in New South Wales it was assumed 

 that the number and value of the pensions would be equiva- 

 lent to 50 per cent, of the old people receiving full pensions. 

 For the reasons pointed out above it seems probable that the 

 cost of the pensions in New Zealand will grow so as to accord 

 more closely with this hypothesis. If this is verified, the cost 

 of the old-age-pension scheme in New Zealand, if it remains 

 as at present constituted, will by the year 1911 have grown to 



