BY R. M. JOHNSTON, I.S.O.. F.S.S. 101 



The practical experience of New Zealand proves that a 

 provision of this kind would not include more than 1.38 

 per cent, of the total population ; 3.35 per cent, of all 

 breadwinners, and about 35 per cent, of all persons of the 

 age of 65 years and over. The average amount of actual 

 pension for each pensioner would be about £17 per head, 

 and its present capital value for the remaining expectation 

 of life at 65 would, at 3^^ per cent., represent a capital value 

 of £153. 



Let us now get at the average effect of the debt of the 

 group of children under 15 years for maintenance and sup- 

 port as due to the parents represented by the group of 

 breadwinners between the age of 25 and 65 years. The 

 children represent 35.40 per cent, of the total population, 

 and the breadwinners between the age of 25 and 65 years 

 represent 24.54 per cent. It means that every 100 bread- 

 winners of the group, on the average, maintain 144 help- 

 less children (or, as 1 to 1.44) for 15 years. The annual 

 support for 15 years of such children would cost each bread- 

 winner of the group, with interest at 3^ per cent., a capital 

 amount equivalent to £389, which, if then treated as a 

 debt unpaid improved at compound interest for 25 years 

 lonorer, i.e., until the breadwinner attains the a-o^e of 65 

 years, would represent the debt of youth to age, as 

 equivalent to a capital sum of £918. 



On the other hand, let us see how far it would be pos- 

 sible for the children (when they attain the age of the in- 

 dependent breadwinner at the 21st year) to repay to age 

 its indebtedness to the latter, as measured by an assumed 

 contribution to Old Age Pensions, if restricted to £17 per 

 head of such aged and infirm persons who would probably 

 come under its provisions. This would mean that 46 per 

 cent, of the population for 44 years would contribute 

 jointly their fair share to the sujDport and maintenance of 

 3.35 per cent, of the population, which is a close estimate 

 of all the aged infirm persons who can come under the 

 qualified conditions which determine the aged infirm 65 

 years and over entitled to the assumed Old Age Pension 

 of £17 per head per year. The final result would be that 

 to discharge this limited provision for old age pension 

 would only demand an annual contribution of £1 4s. 9d. 

 from each breadwinner for 44 years, and which in that 

 time would accumulate to a sum of £125, thus leaving an 

 unredeemed balance of obligation of £793, or 86.39 per 

 cent, still remaining to the credit claim of old age as 

 against 5^outh ; or, more significantly, to the unredeemable 

 credit balance of old age as against the existing bread- 

 winners, or, looking at the latter from an abstract point of 

 view — the State ! 



