OLD-AGE PENSIONS IN NEW ZEALAND.
[To T II R EDITOR 05 T "SP ECTAT011.1 Sin,—Your correspondent, Sir William Chance, charges me with inaccuracy in stating that the sum paid to old-age pensioners in New Zealand in the year ending with March, 1905, was 2195,000. He says that it should have been 2199,081. He has, however, confused two different sums. The figures quoted by him are what is termed the liability at the end of the financial year. That liability is a mere estimate arrived at by giving the number of pensions in force on the last day of the year, and the apparent annual liability of the Government on that basis. The figures cited by Sir William Chance do not repre- sent the sum actually paid during the year then ending, or any year. They are a mere yearly estimate, which is of some service to the New Zealand Treasury as part of a basis of calculation for next year's cost. What I stated was some- thing quite different,—namely, the amount paid to the pensioners during the particular financial year to which your leader-writer and I were referring. I said 2195,000. Had I wished to appear minutely accurate, I should have said 2195,475. That was the amount. Sir William Chance further suggests that because the New Zealand Friendly Societies have not fulfilled the expectations of certain critics by withering away under the blighting influence of a State old-age pensions system, therefore there must be something curious and peculiar about them. He hints that more ought to be known about these strange bodies. I do not think that there is anything unusual about our Friendly Societies, but if Sir William Chance, or any other student, wishes for infor- mation about them, it is to be obtained at my office.—I am,
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