698 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Savings-Bank is to be credited with a further sum of £15 

 from the State Pension Fund. Afterwards he has to pay £1 

 a year, and at sixty-five he can claim a pension of £13 a year. 

 There are certain provisions for allowances to his widow in 

 case of death, and should he die without leaving a widow or 

 children his representatives receive the original £5. In the 

 case of a woman payments have to be made on a non-return- 

 able scale. £1 10s. deposited in the Post-Office Savings-Bank 

 before twenty-five years of age entails a credit of £8 from the 

 State Pension Fund, and thereafter on the payment of 8s. 8d. 

 yearly for forty years a pension of £7 16s. is due at the age of 

 sixty-five. Thus on this scheme a man is to become entitled 

 to a weekly payment of 5s. at the age of sixty-five, and a 

 woman to a payment of 3s. a week at a like age. 



The Act to provide old-age pensions which was introduced 

 by the Right Hon. Mr. Seddon last year states that, "Whereas 

 it is expedient that all persons who during the prime of life 

 have helped to bear the public burdens of the colony by the 

 payment of taxes, and to open up its resources by their labour 

 and skill, should in old age be protected by the colony against 

 risk of want : Be it therefore enacted that every person 

 attaining the age of sixty-five or upwards shall be entitled to 

 a pension of 10s. a week for the rest of life if he is and has 

 been for twenty years residing in the colony continuously for 

 the preceding three years and not more than eighteen months 

 absent in ten years preceding application." It is proposed 

 to find the necessary funds to meet such a liability from the 

 following alternative services : Primage duties, increase of 

 excise duties, land-taxes, death duties, and stamp duties, tax 

 on mortgages, ticket-tax on entertainments, &c. 



It will be noticed that the schemes mentioned vary very 

 widely. The German scheme calls in the combined as- 

 sistance of the workers, the employers of labour, and the 

 Government ; Mr. Booth's scheme makes the State liable for 

 the maintenance of all persons over the age of sixty-five years ; 

 Mr. Chamberlain's scheme combines workers and the State ; 

 whilst Mr. Seddon's scheme runs on all-fours with Mr. 

 Booth's, except that the proposed pension is doubled. 



With the schemes proposed for England we have nothing 

 to do. They are suggestive, as in the German scheme, but 

 they would certainly not be satisfactory if adopted for this 

 country. The standard of social comfort is much higher in 

 the colonies than in the old countries of Europe, and when it 

 is considered that the average cost for the maintenance of 

 paupers in England is already 4s. weekly, Mr. Chamberlain's 

 scheme offers nothing to the workers beyond paying for a 

 period of forty years for what they obtain at present for 

 nothing. 



