Problems of the Pacific 



35 



-who want work. Their wives and 

 children are taken with them, because 

 New Zealand people do not believe in 

 separating a man from his family. The 

 man, with his wife and children, are 

 placed upon railroad trains, for the 

 journey is a long one, given lodgings 

 at night, and cared for until they come 

 to the scene of their labors. There they 

 find a government officer in charge of 

 tents of shelter. They are given in- 

 structions to work and tools to work 

 with and land of their own to settle 

 upon . 



Some who take up land do not know 

 how to farm and have no funds. They 

 are given the land, tools to work it, 

 seeds and teams to plant the land, and 

 are given instructions as rapidly as pos- 

 sible, taught to fell the forest trees and 

 raise the crops, and the government ad- 

 vances them money. We say they are 

 given this and that, but they are given 

 nothing. They have to pay for the 

 land, and so well and surely is the 

 scheme managed that they do pay. 

 Their time is divided off, half for them- 

 selves and half for the government. 



There are man}- other interesting 

 things to tell you about, but we will 

 pause only for a moment by the side of 

 Magistrate A — , who asked me to sit . 

 by him to see him administer this new 

 .act of mercy and justice, the old-age 

 pension law. 



It is unnecessary for one to be a pau- 

 per to become -a pensioner. One may 

 have an income of thirty-four pounds a 

 year and still receive a pension, or he 

 may have eighteen pounds a year and 

 still receive a full pension. No, New 

 Zealand is not encouraging the people 

 to become paupers. There are many 

 things to prevent. One may have com- 

 mitted a serious crime or one may be an 

 habitual drinker, and, if so, he cannot 

 get a pension. 



It is an international sight to see put 

 into political effect the precepts of 

 Christianity. We look upon the old 



men and women as they come to be 

 asked questions, and they all kiss the 

 Bible (which is a most unsanitary pro- 

 ceeding, apt to reduce the number of 

 pensioners) . Each one must answer as 

 to whether he or she has ever been in 

 prison. One old lady among the appli- 

 cants had a face so refined and pure the 

 judge could not bear to ask her such a 

 question as that. He looked at her 

 with the utmost benignity as he said, 

 " Now, have you ever been in any 

 trouble? " 



The dear old lady said, " Why, yes ; 

 I was alone in the house once for six 

 weeks." She had not understood him 

 at all, and so he had to repeat the ques- 

 tion in the plain language of the law. 



Another thing — they must answer the 

 question which comes in the insurance 

 policies — their age. 



And there were a few women, and 

 they all told their age — sixty-five years. 

 New Zealand is the only part of the 

 world where I ever saw a woman of a 

 certain age willing to tell her birth-year. 

 There was a widow who had recently 

 married, and she had given her age as 

 younger than she was, and this year she 

 had given another age in order to get 

 the pension. ' ' I am exceedingly sorry, ' ' 

 said the judge, " but you can't give one 

 age to get married and another to get a 

 pension." 



There was one very forlorn-looking 

 woman, so old that all her friends had 

 died ; every trace of her birth had dis- 

 appeared, the Bible was gone, her mar- 

 riage certificate even lost. Then the 

 judge said in the kindliest way, waiving 

 the question of other evidence, "No 

 matter; you look it," and as she heard 

 the words a smile of intense gratification 

 spread over her face. 



The New Zealand people say there is 

 nothing which has given them greater 

 satisfaction than the old-age pension 

 law, and you will perhaps understand 

 their satisfaction when I quote this sen- 

 tence from an official report : " Owing 



