Why not a fund

for the elderly?

rently affecting those who are reaching the end of their working lives.

From the 1920 s onward a rapidly increasing number of young Paguineans have been abandon ing the life of the village for wage earning jobs.

Some, after a period of wage earning, reverted to village life, but more and more became perman ent wage earners.

Many who took this step in the pre-war years have now reached, or are approaching, the time when they can no longer continue in their employ ment. Few of them have had a chance of con tributing to a pension scheme during their work ing years, and some face a grim old age.

“Oh, they’ll be all right”, say some expatri ates cheerfully. “Their people will look after them.”

Underlying this facile optimism is a mis conception about how Paguinean social security worked. It is true that the old were well cared for in most Paguinean communities. But the motive force was not compassion, though I do not suggest that compassion was not frequently pre sent—l am sure that it was.

The motive force was reciprocation. Those who had made their contribution to the welfare of the community in the days of their strength were entitled to, and received, care and support in their old age.

At the death of one exceptionally cantan kerous old lady I knew, a relative said, “It was high time she died”; and I have never known a coffin made so quickly. But, as trying as she was, she had been well cared for while she lived; she had had a wonderful way with the yams in her prime.

Back in the 1950 s I knew a charming old man from eastern Papua—a gentleman if ever there was one. He had worked in Port Moresby for many years at a wage from which he could save little, and most of his near relatives were dead. As old age approached he looked forward with increasing dread to the day when he would have to return to his village. Largely due to the position of respect he held in the Church, he was, I believe, well received when he did go back.

Death came to him soon, and I suspect that he welcomed it.

The problem is compounded by the fact that.

during the years in which some of these now elderly men have been working away in offices and workshops, the communities from which they came have been moving out of a subsistence into a cash economy. It’s one thing to provide for grandad from the harvest of garden, bush and sea, but another kettle of fish to support him on store-bought food.

True, some employers, including the govern ment, are providing ex-gratia pensions or lump sum gratuities for retiring employees of long standing. But some are not. Moreover, many of those now growing old suffered, through no fault of their own, a break in the continuity of their employment during the years of war.

In a case which recently came to my notice the employee had been doing virtually the same job since he left my school about 1930. But he has done it under four employers—first the pre war Papua Administration, then a private Aus tralian communications organisation, then, during the war, the Army, and finally a Commonwealth Government-sponsored commission.

The last of his four employers is bucking at taking responsibility for him, and he looks like missing out. And he, poor chap, is one of those who come from a community which has now moved over almost completely into a cash economy.

It is satisfactory to note that local officers in the Public Service are now to have their own superannuation scheme, and that moves are afoot to establish a national provident fund for Papua New Guinea on the lines of one already estab lished in Fiji. But these will only help those who are just beginning, or have not advanced very far in, their wage earning life.

In the meantime there will be cases of hard ship. They will not be so numerous that they could not be met by compassionate allowances from a fund set up for the purpose. The capital sum needed to set up such a fund need not be unduly great in proportion to the sort of money we are spending in other ways.