OLD AGE PENSIONS ONE WAY OUT.

Evening Star, Issue 13162, 19 January 1909, Page 7

OLD AGE PENSIONS ONE WAY OUT.

By J. J. Robinson (Organiser and Vice-President of the North-Eastern Counties Convalescent Home for Friendly Society Members; Managing Editor of the ‘West Sussex Gazette). I write as a business man. and a practical administrator, wishful to play a humble part in lire development of a healthy, vigorous, and independent race, and having experienced the correctness of methods here reccommended; they have Succeeded wherever they have been’loyally tried. I believe, as one writer puts it, that men and women can get pretty much what they like in this world, providing they really like it. The workers can get old age pensions to-day if they really wish for them, without begging from the State or laying hands on money they have not themselves earned. As their ‘ friend, I would have them try. In a short paper I cannot do more than indicate one or two practical administrative changes of farreaching importance, which are possible to-day in most English towns and villages. No great problem is to be solved easily or for the whole country at once: it has to be solved in detail, adjusting means to ends, as a plant grows. Reference is not made here to the habitually improvident. They cannei bo treated as men; they have to be doctored either mecha-ni--cally, surgically, or penally as the chilren they are. Nor is reference possible to women. I write for the bulk of the workers, who will do what is right if they know it, and get fair play and intelligent sympathy. Most of these are already organised into great provident orders carrying on their work in every English town. They have gone far on the road we would have them travel; let us first see what can be don© through their °B er ]f7- Do we realise their numbers and wealth? From an official statement of the Friendly Societies to the King, I find that the funds of the nation’s Friendly Societies in 1906 “amount to fifty and a naif million pounds, and the membership to fourteen millions; if, however, all the registered thrift societies together with savings banks are included, the figures are respectively four hundred and two and a quarter millions of funds, and thirty millions of members. The contributions of members of registered Friendly Societies and branches amount to upwards of six millions sterling per annum, while the interest on their invested fnuds amounts to two millions. FINANCIAL SOLVENCY. • Details apart, they do much the same sort work. Entrants pay contributions which entitle them to payments during sickness, to funeral benefits/to aid of widows ■and orphans, and even to superannuation allowances, the different benefits varing according to the-scale by which contributions ate paid. Five millions annually are dedicated to relief in sickness and payments in old age and at death. One million is expended in various other payments to the advantage of the members, about ten ner

cent, of the total receipts go in management expenses, and the remainder, about one and a-quarter millions per annum, is set aside to meet the contingencies of the future. The State compels a quinquennial valuation, but attaches no penalty to noncompliance with the valuer’s recommendations. The history of Friendly Society work during many decades is the history of efforts made to manage the thousands of branches successfully, to - eqnip them to meet future liabilities, and to attain financial solvency. Unfortunately, hundreds pf little provident ships have gone down with their crews, so to speak, because members could not, or would not, learnt heir business, read the valuers’ reports, or follow their recommendations. But by great efforts financial solvency is being gradually at tained ; several are still in the rear. The largest and strongest Order, the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows, as an Order expects to declare a surplus of over on© million pounds on the complete or Eighth Valuation, just closing. Very many of its branches are still actuarially deficient. Inadequate scales of contribution, lax control, special labor risks, shall I say a weak standard of honor among members, ignorance of conditions making for success, have all hampered progress in the past, and hamper it now. The superior officers of the Orders fully conversant with the weaknesses of Hie Orders do their best. But they get little intellectual sympathy or guidance from outsiders well qualified to assist them, and when politicians or local dignitaries do speak to the members at annual gatherings, it is only to show how little they know about the difficul. work tile officers and members have underundertaken. Administration is here, as everywhere, the crux. THE SICK-HELP SCHEME. The Provident Orders will find further progress on their existing lines difficult, and old age pensions beyond their reach., ■ unless they face considerable amendments, both in their practice and their policy. With these amendments success need not be long delayed. As to their practice. The chief expense they have to meet is what is termed sickpay—i.o., paymentsjnadc to members during sickness. No one who knows the details will question my statement when I say that by better business administration, and by the firm enforcement of existing rides, the Orders can cut down their outgoings in sick pay by 15 to 20 per cent., without inflicting injustice on any honest member. I shall be prepared to demonstrate the exact methods if this statement is challenged. It is of the highest importance to them, and to the State, that these improvements in administration should be made speedily. As to their policy, still greater opportunity is before them. They must abandon their present antiquated and unscientific method of fighting sickness, and substitute for it one informed by modern knowedge, and using the modern resources of travel and co-operation now open to the workers. They fight sickness now in ineffective fashion; it is bound sometimes to beat them. They use the muzzle-loader where they might use the magazine rifle. So far as their sick-help scheme is concerned, it takes no count of how a man becomes ill, and. officially, it recks little as to the methods by which, when the crisis is past, he recovers health and remains healthy.Drugs when Jie is ill, and a coffin if he dies—-that sums up the present policy of the normal Friendly Society. A good engineer, if bis master knows his business, by care and due lubrication, prevents his engine from breaking down. A weak part is strengthened; a dangerous friction, eased. Nothing so sensible is done by the provident Orders. They wait till the engine smashes up, and they do not often ask why it did smash. 1 suggest that a better arrangement with their doctors, more enlightened propaganda, and stiffor control, would do much to prevent (he sickness which so gravely diminishes their possibilities of usefulness, before it incapacitated the worker.

A CONVALESCENT HOME. Take next the convalescent stage. Out- ! side the provident Orders, an intelligent man recovering from illness, as soon as he is able to do so. gets away for a suitable change. lie leaves the surroundings in which ho broke down, arid, using the medicine Providence provides and common sense annexes, ho tries the ministry of a change of air and scene, gpod food, sunshine and outdoor life. If those who have the means line! this policy a repaying one, why should not the workers, by the cooperation they in some matters so froelv practise, make a like wise use of climate ,> care, and change? .Surely the provident ' Orders can add adequate provision for 1 convalescence to their sick-help scheme, ' by establishing profit-earning convalescent j homes—or shall I call them health shops? i It can be done, as I know from personal 1 experience. Here and there the work lias i been flirted with ; but the steady use of 1 such homes as weapons with which to ' fight sickness, and to diminish sickness ox- : penses has yet to come. There are many methods by which these homes may be provided and as for maintenance, "what can be urged against a business which pays three dividends, and dispenses blessings over smiling parishes? Such a home earns one dividend for itself, seeing that such a charge may bo made for a stay at it as will cover the tost of keep, and provide establishment cost as well. It can bo done, and I can, do it. Any society using the home, which purchases' an admission ticket for its ailing member, gets a dividend too, for by sending him to the home at the right time it perfects Iris health more sj'cedily. and gets him off its sitk list weeks, perhaps months, earlier than if bo had stayed in a possibly depressing home. That can be done, for it has been done, i Then the patient himself gels a dividend, for out of funds that his own providence has created he gets his convalescent home ticket,for say a three weeks’ pay; his sick pay goes to the wife to keep the little home together. THE WAY OUT. I have discussed these matters with the late Sir William. Broadbcnt and other physicians and officials, and they generally agree with mo that by a proper use of modern resources the sick pay now spent by the provident Orders may be further cut down by an additional 20 to 25 per cent.—from 40 to 45 per cent, in all, that is. The funds thus saved will become available for old age pensions, won legitimately by intelligence, thrift, and business capacity. .It is officially stated that a rate of contribution well within the reach of most young men at twenty-one (£1 l£s to £2 ss) will provide them with sick benefits, funeral benefits,'and if they live, an old age pension of 5s a iveek after sixtyfive, fighting sickness with the weapons of the past. J'hc older societies, carrying the burdens of past struggles and errors, can give this boon to their present mem* bers if they will but develop their good work, put themselves in line with the growing intelligence of. the time, and avail themselves of the wiser and more progressive economies now possible to them. Our provident Orders need new missionaries with the new gospel and the old spirit which has made them what thev undoubtedly are—an honor to the race that gave them birth. For long they have ' been willing to legislate for the cemetery, j Will they now not legislate 'for the sea- ! side, and for a secure and sheltered old \ age? They can do it. And when the pro- ' vident Orders have reached their goal, the nation can the more easily attack the’problem of the improvident.