there is no likelihood of it ever becoming practicable, whatever support it may receive from aristocratic philanthropy. From the point of view of political principle the proposal is, of course, quite indefensible. The proposition to confer the privilege of a public grant of old age pensions exclusively on the members of a certain. organization at the cost of the whole community, thereby placing it on the footing of one of the public services, or of those churches, colleges, instititutes, museums, or galleries which are endowed for the spread of religion, learning and art, could no doubt be justified if it could be shown that the result would be the solution of the problem by the immediate flocking into the Friendly Societies of the entire laboring class. But, as we have seen, what prevents the bulk of the laboring class now from joining the societies is that they are not only not willing to pay the contributions, but not able, except at the cost of intensifying privations that are already intolerable. Their maintenance in old age would fall on the rates nearly as heavily with endowed Friendly Societies as it does now. Why, then, should the taxpayers (including the poorest voter who buys tobacco or beer) consent to a project so invidious on the face of it as a State endowmeet of Friendly Societies, any more than_of_the_Prudential Insurance Company, or of the Trade Unions and Temperance bodies? Outside the societies themselves, the endowment would be regarded as a job; and, however unjust that view might be to the intentions of its advocates, it would probably be borne out by the practical results of such a measure.* II. COMPULSORY STATE INSURANCE. It is proposed, in all forms of this method yet put forward, that the State should adopt a scale of weekly contributions to be paid by the workers out of their wages, in return for which a pension, in proportion to the payments, should be granted at a certain age. In other words, it is proposed that the State should do what the Friendly Societies now do, with the startling difference that membership should be compulsory on the whole community. If anyone really regards this as a sane or possible proposal, he had better apply his imagination at once to the work of collecting the weekly premiums. Existing collecting societies, dealing with a class specially provident and specially well able to pay, have to spend a third of their income in obtaining it. The collection of school pence has been given up as unremunerative, and Free Education established. And whether the payments of the working class are to be dragooned out of them by a battalion of soldiers, wheedled from them by collectors, or freely yielded by consciences stricken with the terrors of old age, no method has been proposed, nor can the wit of man devise one, by which contributions can be secured in periods of unemployment and sickness. The average member of the Friendly Society of Ironfounders was earning nothing for over *The House of Commons Select Committee of 1899 rejects the proposal to endow Friendly Societies because it would exclude many, especially women, from the operation of the scheme. six weeks every year in the ten years 1881-1891. During a period of great depression in the trade the same average in the society was 14 weeks each year. Assuming that the unemployed or sick Trade Unionist can pay his weekly premium out of his allowance from the Union, what about the twelve millions of wage-workers who are not in any Trade Union? Yet upon continuity of payment, on pain of lapse of policy, all insurance schemes depend. If failure to pay is to be overlooked, actuarial requirements cannot be met: if inability to pay is to involve the lapse of the defaulter, the laboring class will not benefit by the plan, although they will be cruelly harried by it. If the German form of State insurance were adopted, equal contributions would be levied from masters and workmen. In Germany the workmen complain, with good reason, that the employers' quota of contribution is paid out of their wages. The resultant strikes, quarrels, and appeals to the Reichstag suggest that in a country where Trade Union combination is more general and more highly organized, as in our own, the adoption of such a law would plunge us into a series of industrial conflicts which would soon convince us that no compulsory contribution scheme is worth the friction it would create.* III. VOLUNTARY STATE INSURANCE. The more modest of the supporters of State insurance only ask that the scheme should be voluntary. This would, of course, simply mean that the existing State annuities, which have been such a dismal failure, should be widely advertised; so that the poor could stare hungrily at the list of rates in the post-office window. Were it even possible to secure at the outset any large accession of insurers, a gradual process of lapsing would ensue. In 1898 the Manchester Unity lost 23,528 members through failure to maintain contributions. In the five years, 1881-1885, thirteen of the largest societies in the United Kingdom lost 2,431,000 members through "lapses." Some of these members probably renewed their connection; but Friendly Society officials confess that many more have never returned. The only way in which the continuance of payments could be largely ensured would be by the State having an enormous staff of collectors scattered throughout the country. If collectors with compulsory powers cost more than what they collect is worth, what could collectors without powers, collecting excuses and refusals, do for us? In short, we are again thrown back by the old argument. The workers of this country cannot afford to contribute to any scheme of * In 1897 over 400,000 persons in Germany drew pensions amounting to £2.750,531, about one half of which was for old age allowances. The cost of administration is about 10 per cent. of the total contributions, and is increasing. (Cf. C-8,649-17 of 1898, and C—9,414 of 1899.) P.G.M. Orford White, in referring to this subject in his address on May 25th, 1896, said: "That we should have lost in the last five years no less than 112,812 from our ranks from this cause alone sounds like a reproach upon our organization; yet, I believe, praiseworthy efforts are being made by secretaries and officers alike to stem the ebbing tide." (Page 5.) insurance, much less to one in which the majority of them will not survive to participate. Mr. Charles Booth has proved to us that there are 260,000 families in London alone which have to live on a guinea a week, or less.* Sir Robert Giffen told the Labor Commission that there are one million and three-quarters of adult men in the United Kingdom earning a pound a week or less. The doctrine that what these people want is the moral tonic of a little extra self-denial, and that if they do not choose to exercise it they can end in the workhouse, has been shamed out of public life, and replaced by a demand for a higher standard of nourishment and culture among the people. Consequently, any proposal that seeks to diminish by ever so little the already scanty earnings of the working classes may be dismissed as fatal to any scheme of industrial and social reconstruction. A less obvious, but very weighty practical objection to any scheme involving the collection of contributions, is the vehement opposition it would encounter from the leaders of the working classes in their official capacity as chiefs of the existing voluntary organizations. They well know that an increase of contribution in one direction would be provided for by a retrenchment in some other. As Mr. Broadhurst puts it: "The Friendly Societies and the Trade Unions, to which the working classes owe so much, naturally view with some apprehension the creation of a gigantic rival insurance society, backed by the whole power of the Government. The collection of contributions from millions of ill-paid households is already found to be a task of great difficulty, intensified by every depression of trade or other calamity. For the State to enter into competition for the available subscriptions of the wageearners, must necessarily increase the difficulty of all Friendly Societies, Trade Unions, and Industrial Insurance Companies, whose members and customers within the United Kingdom probably number, in the aggregate, from eleven to twelve millions of persons."† IV.—UNIVERSAL STATE PENSIONS THE TRUE REMEDY. Every step in the foregoing examination points to one solution, and one alone, as the effective one. Universal State Pensions, to be claimed by every person as a right upon attaining a certain age, and provided out of the general taxation of the Kingdom, is the only remedy that will completely meet the case. We must recognize that a man who has served the community throughout his working life is as much entitled to maintenance from the community in his old age as his child is to education in his nonage. The Government Scheme. After years of discussion, during which a Royal Commission and a Treasury Committee have pronounced against State Pensions, a Select Committee of the House of Commons has discovered that *Life and Labor of the People, Vol. I. † See Minority Report of Mr. H. Broadhurst, M.P., in Report of the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor, etc., pp. xcix-c. (C-7,684, 1895.) the principle of pensions is a sound and practicable one. Presided over by a Cabinet Minister who had previously denounced pensions in anv shape or form, the Committee has formulated a scheme more progressive than any official declaration has hitherto been. The following heads constitute the main points of the project: (1) That a pension authority in each Union be established, to consist of a statutory_committee, appointed by, but independent of, the Guardians, with representatives from other local governing bodies. (2) That the cost of the pensions be borne by the Union, (4) That they be granted for three years and be renewable. The recognition in this scheme of the principle of pensions as a legitimate claim is a satisfactory one, though there are numerous details open to criticism. The selection of Guardians as indirectly the administrative authority is objectionable for reasons given later. The proposed division of expense between the State and the Union is an unfair one, and would severely tax the resources of rural districts, on account of the undue proportion of aged residents in country villages. It may be further urged that provision for old age should be a national rather than a local obligation. The test of "reasonable providence" is unjust in theory, for the social function of providing for old age should be kept quite distinct from the social function of punishing or restraining dissolute idleness and drunkenness. It is doubtful, however, if in practice the test could be applied, except it be insisted that claimants should be members of benefit societies. To this reservation great opposition would be made. The Committee's proposals represent, probably, the minimum concessions that the Government is prepared to support, and, by pressure and agitation, considerable alterations could be secured in the scheme. A Practical Alternative. The following heads of an alternative scheme are submitted as forming the basis of a practical measure: (1) That the County Councils be the statutory authority for the administration of the scheme. (2) That the County Councils be authorized to appoint a (3) That age be the sole test of an applicants' qualification. (5) That the pension be paid by the Councils through the (6) That the age-qualification be sixty-five, and that the pension be one of 7s. per week for town residents, and 5s. per week for rural residents. (7) That the total amount of the pensions be paid by the Treasury, and the cost of administration be thrown on the county rate. There is weight in much that has been urged in support of the choice of the Guardians as the pension authority, especially in the fact that they possess the necessary machinery and the useful local knowledge. But it is important that the present stigma attached to Poor Law relief should be removed by every possible means from the new Old Age Pensions. The stigma is a sentimental one, but it is so deeply rooted in the feelings of the working class that the only way of avoiding it appears to be the constitution of a distinct authority for the administration of the scheme. Meanwhile, the Poor Law would of course remain; so that if any individual pensioner should prove incapable of using his pension otherwise than as a means of securing a day's drunkenness as a prelude to six days in the workhouse or prison, steps might be taken for its better administration by the Guardians. And as the pension is hardly likely to be liberal at the outset of the scheme, there need be no relaxation in the spreading of such Poor Law work on behal of the aged poor as that described in Fabian Tract No. 54, on the Humanizing of the Poor Law, especially in the section on cottage homes. Those pensioners who were unable to shift for themselves could thus take refuge with the Guardians whilst feeling that they were contributing the amount of their pension to their own support. COST. It is impossible to form any reliable estimate of the cost of a scheme of pensions. The possible number of claimants is an unknown one. But the question is not serious, for if the Government is prepared to consider a plan involving an annual expenditure of at least five or six millions, the extra cost necessary to make the scheme effective will not be overwhelming. In any case, the advantages of securing a certainty of food and clothing to our aged people are |