OLD AGE PENSIONS

Evening Star, Issue 9701, 9 May 1895, Page 4

OLD AGE PENSIONS

MR CHAMBKHLAIN’S LATFST SCITFMK.

In the course of a recent speech (the full text of which appears in the ‘ National Review ’) at Birmingham, Mr Joseph Chamberlain thus explained bis modified scheme of old age pensions, with special referem e to friendly societies :

I believe that this question of old age pensions has taken a very’ firm hold of the popular mind, but I fancy that there are very few of those who approve of the principle (ami only those who, like myself, have given days and weeks to its consideration) who are aware of the difficulties which surround any practical attempt to put our principles into operation. And therefore I tell you candidly that I doubt very much whether I should have ever committed myself to the advocacy of the matter if I had not been assured that I should enjoy the support and the cordial approval of all those persons and of all those institutions that are interested in the promotion of thrift. I believed that the .proposals which have been put befoie you would from the first enlist the sympathy and active support of all the members of provident societies, who would at once perceive that they were calculated to encourage habits of self-denial amongst the working classes, and to give an impetus to those organisations which have already done so much in the course of the last halfcentury to secure the self-respect and independence of the masses of the population.

OPPOSITION OF FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. Accordingly, you will readily understand that I was greatly disappointed to find that at the very outset, before any definite proposals had been submitted to the public, some of the most justly respected leaders aud officials of your organisations hastened to express their disapproval, and warned me oft’, as though I were an intruder on their private domain and a poacher on their preserves. I confess that I was not only disappointed, but I was surprised. I believed that we were working on the same lines, and with the same objects. I knew that, so far as I was concerned, I regarded those gentlemen with the most friendly feelings, and the organisations which they represented with the warmest sympathy. From the very first I invited their assistance and cooperation, and I recognised that, with their great experience and knowledge, they were entitled to take a leading place in guiding this movement. I had persuaded myself that the suggestions which I had to make were calculated in more ways than one to confer the greatest possible benefit upon the institutions in which they are interested—to relieve those institutions from their most serious difficulty, to remove the principal obstacles to their continued progress, and to maintain in the case of some of them and to restore in the case of many of them that financial solvency without which any course of continued usefulness is absolutely impossible. THE OPPOSITION UNREASONABLE.

I came, therefore, to the conclusion that this rather premature expression of opinion from some of your leaders must be due to misapprehension of my intentions and to a lack 6f sufficient information. . , .

FRIENDLY CRITICISM. But I am happy to say that many members and some of the leaders of the organisations have from the first been favorable. A notable example is that of Mr Claverhouse Graham, lately the G.M. of the Manchester Unity, who has delivered some admirable addresses on this subject. He has been supported by many others, and I will quote to you the words of one of them, Mr Redwood, P.P.G.M. of the same Order, because I think that they correctly express the spirit in which you ought to approach this discussion. He says:. “It will not, in my opinion, be becoming on the part of Oddfellows, Foresters, or members of any other friendly society to resolutely set their faces against any scheme without even examining it, without taking the trouble to inquire whether it has any good points, the preservation and enforcement of which may he beneficial to the nation of which members of friendly societies form a part.” And Mr Redwood goes on to say that though in the first instance he was prejudiced against State assistance in any form, yet further consideration of the matter has brought him round to take rather a different opinion.

THE NEED "FOR REFORM. My first duty is to lay before you the facts which, in my opinion, justify our action. There was a Prime Minister in the early part of the reign of Queen Victoria, Lord Melbourne, who was wont to say, when anybody made any new proposition to him, “Can’t you let it alone?” I do not complain if anyone makes the same observation to me. It is a very reasonable question to put to anyone who poses in the character of a reformer, for before we have any right to ask for a change in the existing system, the burden of proof lies with us to show that the existing system is imperfect, and urgently needs alteration. 1 will tell you the facts, and I will leave you in your consciences and in your hearts to answer the question whether or not we are justified m doing nothing. The last return that we have with- regard to old ace pauperism is a return which was published by Mr Ritchie when he was president of the Local Government Board, ihat return shows that during the year

ended Lady-day, 1892, there were relieved under the poor law 401,904 persons over • the age of sixty-five. The total population over the age of sixtyfive, according to the census of 1891, was 1,372,601, and accordingly it follows from these figures that the proportion of paupers oyer the age of sixty-five to the whole populathatageinEnglandund Waleswas29 28 per cent., or about one in three and a-half. Bub that does not show the whole gravity of the situation* because of the total population over sixty-five a very considerable proportion, which has been estimated by Mr Booth and by other statisticians as equal to one-third of the whole, belong to what I may call the well-to-do classes—that is to say, to the classes who are never likely under any circumstances to have need of parish relief—and if you deduct this one-third from the total population, then the proportion of paupers to what remains—that is to say, to that portion of the population over sixty-five that belongs to the working classes and to the Small tradesmen and small shopkeepers—would be about one in two and a-quarter. You must also consider that besides the persons who have recourse to the parish for relief there are always many people whose number it is impossible to estimate, because we have no statistics on the subject, who are always on the verge of pauperism, and are making heroic efforts to avoid the necessity for applying for this form of relief. These people are in poverty and in want, but they are not absolutely in a state of destitution. But even putting them aside altogether, taking no account of them, do you see what results from the figures that I have laid before you? It is this : that of every man belonging to the working and the poorer classes one in two and a-quarter—nearly one in two—is.compelled 'under our present system, if he lives to sixty-five, to have recourse to parish relief. Now can you see your future before you ? Here is a large meeting. I suppose that probably the average of age of those whom I see before me would be something between thirty and thirtyrfive. The expectation of life is that out of that number of men of that age rather more than one in two will live to be sixtyfive. Half, therefore, of this meeting may live to be sixty-five, and of those, unless a change is made, one in two has as his only prospect in his declining years a resort to the tender mercies of the Poor Law. Is not that the answer to the question “Why can’t you leave it alone ?” (To be continued.)