4. Worthless persons might be benefited, for

a. Widows, whatever their character, would receive pensions if their husbands had complied with certain requirements.

5. Infirm persons over seventy would be thrown on the workhouse and thereby deprived of their pensions.

C. The six or seven millions of sterling involved would be a source of bribery and waste, for

1. The bodies to which the sums are entrusted are respon

sible to no legal tribunal.

2. Personal prejudice and party politics are bound to determine the distribution.

3. Good nature is likely to relax the rigidity of the require

ments.

II. This Bill will interfere with wider schemes of reform, for A. It will be treated as an addition to existing Poor Law Relief, for

1. The class of people affected will not make any fine distinction between pensions and Poor Law Relief, for

a. Already in many parishes no discredit attaches to receiving Poor Law Relief.

B. It will become a subvention of wages, for

1. Men still capable of work will earn just enough to enable them to draw pensions, and

2. Employers will benefit by labor which may be worth more. C. It will destroy the work of the Royal Commission appointed to consider the problem of the Poor Laws, for

1. The Bill changes conditions and modifies the problem. III. This Bill does not take account of the financial burden imposed upon the country, for

A. No statement has been made as to where the money will come from, for

1. The belief that it matters not whether the money is paid by charitable institutions and through the Poor Law as at present, or by the Treasury, is unsound, for

a. The mere fact that there is money to be obtained does not make it easy for the Chancellor to obtain it. B. The sum needed is likely to be £11,500,000 and not £6,500,000 or £7,500,000.

C. It absolutely cuts off future expenditure for all other important causes of social betterment.

CONCLUSION

The Bill is hastily drawn and ill-considered, for

I. It does not satisfy legitimate demands.

II. It throws a heavy burden on the resources of the state and cripples future schemes of improvement.

SPEECH ON OLD-AGE PENSIONS 1

A. J. BALFOUR

I HAVE some reluctance in intervening in a debate of which I have not heard the important speeches on either side, or any of the speeches until a few minutes ago, and am, therefore, not quite aware of the arguments on either side. I am, however, reluctant to leave this Bill, discussed as it has been, without making some observations and attempting to sum up and bring to a focus, if I can, some of the impressions that it has aroused in my mind.

I listened with interest to the speech of the honorable Member for Northumberland, who has just sat down, and thought much of it extremely interesting, but was sorry that, contrary to his ordinary Parliamentary habit, he should have travelled somewhat outside the scope of the Bill into controversial politics of ten years ago. I have not the smallest objection to that. I live in an atmosphere of controversial politics. I do not, however, think it very interesting or relevant to the Bill. He thinks that while undoubtedly the majority of the Unionist Party have for many years been in favor of old-age pensions, they ought to have taken the opportunity of bringing in a Bill either in the session of 1896, 1897, or 1898-before, that is, the South African war, and he thinks that the fact that the Government did not bring in a Bill in one of those three years is a slur on their political reputation. I do not agree with the honorable Gentleman. I do not think that the financial position of the country at that time would have justified any such experiment as the Govern

1 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, Vol. 192, col. 175-187.

260

ment is now trying, and if the lapse of three years is supposed to condemn a Government for not bringing a Bill, I should have thought that the present Government would hardly escape.

But that is not an important part of the controversy with regard to this Bill, because we are all agreed that some scheme of pensions is extremely desirable, and the only thing we have doubt about is the manner in which the Government has gone to work in carrying out that unanimously accepted object. It is that that gives me, for one, very serious misgivings. I think that neither the actual provisions of this Bill nor the mode in which the Government has allowed it to be discussed gives us the smallest security that one of the greatest and most costly experiments in social legislation is going to be tried under circumstances that will give any hope of permanent success.

There are three main questions raised by the scheme. The first is, will this Bill work according to its avowed objects? Is the machinery of the Bill, in other words, going to give pensions on the plan that the Government say is desirable? The second is, how is it going to affect the broader and wider problems of social reform? And the third is, how is it going to affect the national finances? These are the three problems that every man in this House, no matter in which quarter he may sit, should really consider if he wants to estimate the value of the legislative experiment the Government are now trying.

The first point is whether the Bill is really going to work out according to the theory of its framers; and, if it does, what will be its results? The theory of its framers is a very simple one. They say that, pending the acquisition of further national resources, they must limit their Bill to pensions for persons seventy years of age, and, to put it broadly, of good character. How is this Bill going to attain these two objects? How is the machinery going to limit the Bill to persons of seventy and to persons of good character? And will the machinery work smoothly, justly, and to public advantage? I cannot really believe that the Government have thoroughly thought out the method in which their own machinery is going to work.

Take the first of the two conditions, that of age.

That is one

of the subjects we have discussed. We have not had an opportunity of discussing the age as between seventy and sixty-five, because that was shut out by the closure, but we have discussed on more than one occasion the machinery by which the age of seventy is be to arrived at. I do not think that by any statement the Government have shown a clear idea of the difficulties by which that investigation is surrounded or the means by which those difficulties are to be surmounted. In the first place, who are the investigators? They are officers of the Inland Revenue, a single committee for each county and large borough, and ultimately the President of the Local Government Board. For the life of me I cannot see that an investigation can be carried out by any of these three bodies. I made some remarks in Committee with regard to the Inland Revenue officers which I believe have given pain to those most estimable public officers. If I have said anything that gave them pain, I most heartily withdraw it. They are a most valuable body of men, and carry out duties of great responsibility with perfect uprightness and great efficiency. But I ask whether the most admirable performance of the duties of the Inland Revenue either gives a man the training or provides him with the machinery by which this kind of investigation is to be carried out. Take the case of an unskilled laborer in London. He reaches an age that he himself thinks seventy or very nearly so. has worked hard all his life, and that if anybody deserves a He believes that he pension he does. He applies to the Inland Revenue officer and says: "My name is O'Grady."

Mr. John Wilson: Make it Smith, and then you are safe.

Mr. Balfour: I chose an Irish name for a particular reason which will appear directly. He says: "My age is seventy, and I desire to be supplied with a pension. I come from Cork." The Inland Revenue officer says: "What proof have you that you are seventy?" He has no proof. Why should he have a proof? I do not believe I should know my own age if it were not that tactless friends are constantly reminding me of it. Most assuredly a dock laborer who left Cork thirty years ago may very well be excused if he has not proof of his age, since

he was born in a country where there was no registration of births at the time when he was presumably born. How is this unfortunate official going to investigate in the city of Cork whether Mr. O'Grady working at the docks is or is not seventy years of age? The thing appears to be wholly impossible, and there is no machinery for doing it. The county committee to which he refers are no better off than himself, and if they refer to the head of the Local Government Board, he is no better off. The machinery cannot be found and will not be supplied. These are considerations that the Government have never faced, for, though they have been urged more than once in Committee, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has never really replied to them. He contented himself with pointing out, what nobody denied, that in every village the age of everybody is known, and that there are places and professions where there would be no difficulty. That does not get over the difficult point with regard to the very people you want to help with these pensions, the poor of the large towns, the unorganized, those who do not belong to trade unions. In these cases neither they nor anybody else can produce that legal proof which is at the very basis of the Bill.

If the difficulties with regard to age are overwhelming, what are we to say with regard to the investigation as to character? None of us are without some misgivings as to the enormous power given to an Imperial officer and to a local committee to form a judgment on the way in which the poorer classes of the community have carried out their life's duty. It is not a pleasant thing to have to do, and if it is done honestly and conscientiously, it will be a very painful duty thrown on those who may have to do it. Here, again, we really have very little means of obtaining assistance. Do not let us consider

the country village where every one's character is known. There may be an opportunity for favoritism or vindictive attacks on unpopular persons, but the facts will be known and may be fairly and properly judged upon. But how can the facts be known with regard to the great floating population of the huge industrial centres? They cannot be known.