6. r
 
 OLD AGE PENSIONS 
 
 AND 
 
 THE AGED POOE 
 
 A PROPOSAL 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES BOOTH 
 
 Hontion 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1899 
 (Re-issued in 1906) 
 
 I All rights reserved)
 
 Si 
 
 W^> 
 
 1906 
 
 7 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In a previous volume* I brought together such facts as 
 I had been able to collect as to the condition of the Aged 
 Poor in England and Wales ; and I promised to deal later 
 tj with proposals for their relief. Meanwhile, we have had 
 the "Report of the Royal Commission on the subject, and 
 also that of a Committee of the House of Lords appointed 
 2 with the special object of carrying the question to a more 
 definite conclusion. These reports yield only a negative 
 result in so far as they neither approve of any of the 
 schemes submitted, nor themselves suggest any other as 
 more practical ; but, on the other hand, both reports recog- 
 nize the existence of a state of things which still cries for 
 
 ^ remedy. 
 
 - More recently Bills for the establishment of pensions in 
 
 o old age have been presented to Parliament, and on more 
 than one occasion have been carried by large majorities on 
 second reading ; while the question of cost has been referred 
 to and reported on by an important departmental committee 
 representing the Government offices chiefly concerned in 
 any such contemplated measures ; the heavy cost being 
 
 !? regarded as the main obstacle, and by many as tho only 
 
 = objection, to these proposals. 
 
 In the present volume (first published in 1899) I briefly 
 recapitulate the facts and sketch the measure I should 
 myself suggest. 
 
 The work above referred to concluded with a summary of 
 the facts and deductions therefrom, and part of this I ven- 
 ture to repeat by way of introduction to the present volume. 
 
 * The Aged Poor: Condition. Macmillan, 1894. 
 
 79695
 
 IV 
 
 The census of 1891 counted (in round numbers) 006,000 
 men and 76(3,000 women of 65 years of age and upwards 
 in England and Wales, or 1,372,000 in all. Of these no 
 less than 359,000 men and 455,000 women lived in districts 
 where from 20 per cent, to 35 per cent, of the old were 
 returned as having had parish relief to some extent in the 
 year ending Lady Day, 1892. Of the remainder, 112,000 
 men and 144,000 women lived in districts where the propor- 
 tion receiving relief was less than 20 per cent., and 135,000 
 men and 167,000 women lived in districts where the pro- 
 portion receiving relief was more than 35 per cent. Or, to 
 carry this analysis still further, the number of persons over 
 65 years of age in Unions with less than 10 per cent, of 
 old age pauperism was in 1891-2 under 10,000, while the 
 number where the proportion is over 50 per cent, was nearly 
 72,000; the remainder (320,000) belonging to Unions with 
 more than 10 and less than 50 per cent, of old age 
 pauperism. The average all round rate is 29.3 per cent.* 
 
 The lowest rate of pauperism in old ag'; recorded (12 
 months being taken as the period of observation), is 8 per 
 cent., which is found in the Unions of Castle Ward in 
 Westmoreland and Brixworth in Northamptonshire; the 
 highest recorded rate is 84 per cent, at St. Saviour's, 
 Southwark, but on this figure doubt has been thrown, not 
 without reason, as having been swollen by duplicate entries 
 which the character of the Union made it difficult to check, 
 and some allowance must be made from the recorded 
 averages for errors of this kind. 
 
 Of the total number of those over 65 years of age relieved 
 during the 12 months (402,000), 114,000 had relief indoors 
 and 288,000 outdoors. Included among the outdoor poor 
 there were 25,000 returned as having medical relief only. 
 Here again some error is probable, but it would be an error 
 
 * There is no reason to suppose that the position had materially changed 
 in the decade 1891 to 1901, and such change as there has been since is for 
 the worse.
 
 in the opposite direction, as the record of those in receipt 
 of medical relief only is undoubtedly incomplete. 
 
 The return used (known as Mr. Ritchie's return) does 
 not supply full particulars as to ages, but by collating the 
 results of a previous enumeration (Mr. Burt's return of 
 1890) a reasonable apportionment can be made, and it may 
 be said without much doubt that while on the whole and 
 taking all ages together only 5 per cent, of the population 
 are paupers, and not one-half of that percentage in the more 
 active years of life, the proportion between 60 and 65 j-ears 
 of age rises to about 10 per cent. ; the proportion between 
 65 and 70, to 20 per cent. ; between 70 and 75, to 30 per 
 cent., and over 75 years of age to not much less than 40 
 per cent. 
 
 Moreover it may be remarked that a considerable section 
 — perhaps one-third — of the population is lifted so far above 
 the need for parish relief as to contribute but little to the 
 figures of pauperism. It follows that the proportion as 
 regards the rest of the people will greatly exceed the 
 general average. If such a division of classes could be 
 made, it would probably be fouud that amongst the working- 
 population and small traders, who survive to 65 years of age, 
 the proportion who come upon the Poor Law for assistance 
 is not less than 40 j)er cent. 
 
 The very serious character of these statistics is evident, 
 and fully justifies the public feeling which has been evinced 
 on the matter. 
 
 C. 13.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PArK 
 
 Preface ... ... ... ... ... v 
 
 I. Condition. 
 
 I. Numbers and Distribution of the Old 3 
 
 II. Condition in Town and Country 
 
 Districts ... ... ... ... 5 
 
 III. Proportion in Receipt of Parish 
 
 Relief ... ... ... ... ... 11 
 
 IV. Effect of Advancing Years on 
 
 Pauperism ... ... ... ... 13 
 
 V. Claims of the Old to Special Con- 
 sideration ... ... ... ... 15 
 
 VI. Treatment of the Old under the 
 
 Poor Law ... ... ... ... 16 
 
 II. Proposals. 
 
 I. Reforms of the Poor LAw r ... ... 23 
 
 (1) The Encouragement of Independence. 
 
 (2) The Encouragement of the Deserting. 
 
 II. Encouragement >>f Savings by Bonus 
 
 on Deferred Annuities ... ... 30 
 
 III. The Endowment of Old Age ... ... 33 
 
 (1) The Argument. 
 
 (•2) The Scheme and its Cost. 
 
 (: J >) Objections and Difficulties. 
 
 IV. Conclusion... ... ... ... ... 71 
 
 Memorandum from the National Com- 
 mittee of Organized Labour 76
 
 PAET I.-CONDITIOX
 
 PART I.— CONDITION 
 
 (RECAPITULATED FROM " THE AGED POOR— CONDITION," 1894). 
 
 I. 
 
 NUMBERS AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE OLD. 
 
 The old people are very unequally distributed. In the 
 registration district of Aberayron in Wales, there is no less 
 a proportion than 420 men and 614 women of 65 years and 
 upwards to 10,000 of population ; whereas, at the other end 
 of the scale, at Barrow-in-Furness, the same proportion gives 
 only 93 old men and 102 old women. In the one place, there 
 are 1,034 persons over 65 to 5,394 between 16 and 65, and 
 in the other only 195 to 5,725. The burthen of the old, so 
 far as it falls locally on those in the years of active life, is 
 thus more than five and a halt times greater in Aberayron 
 than at Barrow. 
 
 The explanation lies chiefly in immigration — Barrow 
 being a newly-made place to which young men (and their 
 wives) have been attracted. It is an extreme case, but the 
 law is of general application. It is the young who move 
 — the old stay behind; and the proportion which young and 
 old bear to each other is greatly affected. Moreover, 
 country life is better suited to the old, and its conditions 
 altogether more favourable to prolonged years. Hence it 
 i- not unnatural that the numbers of the old should vary 
 inv< rsely as the density of the population. It is, however, 
 rather remarkable that the proportion of old people in the 
 rural districts should be as much as t wires what it is in the 
 great towns, i.e., as 800 per 10,000 is to 400. 
 
 1 *
 
 4 THE AGED rOOR. 
 
 In our population, at all ages after infancy, there are 
 more females than males, but this is especially true of the 
 old ; and more particularly so, as it seems, when the total 
 numbers of the old are comparatively small, showing 
 probably that the conditions adverse to old age generally 
 affect the lives of men even more than the lives of women. 
 In London there are, in 10,000 of population, 83 more 
 women than there are men of 65 years and upwards. In the 
 rural districts the excess of women is only 34 per 10,000. 
 
 The old people of to-day are the survivors f of the 
 children who were alive in 1834, when (i.e., in 1831) the 
 population of England and Wales was only 14,000,000. 
 From 1831 to 1851 the population increased 29 per cent. 
 As the total population is now increasing more slowly it 
 may be reasonably assumed that the proportion of the 
 old will, as years go on, gradually become larger. 
 
 It is supposed by some of their number, that the wage- 
 earning classes do not live into old age ; but this is a 
 delusion, if what is suggested is that their chances of pro- 
 longed life are materially worse than those of the middle and 
 upper classes. There are, indeed, great differences in 
 longevity between this and that employment, and there is a 
 broad underlying difference between town and country life ; 
 but not only are the average rates of mortality almost 
 necessarily those of the mass of the people, but it appears, 
 from the experience of the great Friendly Societies, that 
 after manhood is reached the chances of prolonged life are 
 not much affected by wealth. But irregular earnings 
 probably have an adverse influence. 
 
 There are some particularly deadly and some very healthy 
 trades. Some occupations militate against and some for 
 longevity, but the healthy occupations are not always those 
 of the rich, nor are the unhealthy ones exclusively those 
 of the poor, nor are habits which tend to shorten life 
 confined to any class.
 
 CONDITION. 
 
 II. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE OLD IN TOWN AND COUNTRY 
 DISTRICTS. 
 
 In the preceding volume, already referred to, I gave a 
 summary of: reports received from 360 out of 048 unions as 
 to the condition of the poor; and, in much greater detail, 
 particulars obtained from 262 country parishes, represent- 
 ing 231 unions. The north, the south, the east, the west, 
 and the midlands, were all separately considered; com- 
 parisons were made, and general conclusions drawn. 
 
 That the old are better off in the country than in town 
 there seems to be no doubt. They may be very much 
 pinched at times in the country, but there is nothing like 
 the destitution that is found in more populous neighbour- 
 hoods. Old men keep their vigour longer, and even when 
 feeble can still obtain, and satisfactorily perform, some 
 agricultural or garden work. In towns they not only 
 break down at an earlier age, but are accounted incapable 
 sooner still, the result being that the effective working life 
 is ten years shorter in town than in country. Moreover, the 
 cost of living is considerably less in the country ; rents in 
 particular are much lower, and the chances of maintaining 
 or securing a home in old age much better. 
 
 But the condition of many, if not of most, old peoplo 
 even in the rural districts is far from satisfactory ; of 9,000 
 old persons of all classes in the villages reviewed, 4,000 were 
 admitted to be not financially independent. In town and 
 country alike a large proportion of the aged are more or 
 less dependent on someone; either on their children, or on 
 the kindness of an old employer, or on charitable gifts, or 
 on the parish, or some combination of all these. They 
 often live very hard lives; and even when their condition 
 is said to be satisfactory, their means are usually extremely 
 narrow.
 
 G THE At} ED VOOU. 
 
 Iii towns the earnings of the old count for very little, 
 and, as a rule, both in town and country, savings are small. 
 It is the exception when they reach an amount which can 
 be kept together in old age. Many of the working classes 
 have put into clubs, but these clubs have frequently proved 
 broken reeds in old age. More often than not they have 
 never pretended to be anything more than " sharing out 
 clubs. 5 ' The action of the younger men in seeking more 
 stable societies, though hopeful for the future, has 
 aggravated the position of the old to-day, and these 
 societies are financially strong mainly because they do not 
 carry their full proportion of aged members. 
 
 As to the extent to which children help their parents, the 
 accounts vary greatly. A regular money allowance, except 
 from children at a distance, is comparatively rare. Casual 
 assistance in money or kind, or the providing of house-room, 
 are much more common. Daughters in domestic service 
 and sons at sea do far more than those who, being married, 
 have their own families as a first claim ; and the parents 
 often show great reluctance in seeking help from their 
 children, though quite willing to accept it from the parish 
 or to solicit it from outsiders. 
 
 An old woman can more easily find a home than a man, 
 for she can do more in return for her keep and requires far 
 less attention. Old men, however, can generally do some 
 gardening, and allotments are often cultivated advan- 
 tageously by them. The old home is usually broken up 
 unless there are some savings, or the occupancy perhaps of 
 a good cottage and garden, to keep it together. 
 
 In some instances a growing neglect of parents by their 
 children is reported, and the early age at which children 
 in certain industries become independent is indicated as 
 having a tendency in this direction ; but in many parts the 
 family tie seems very strong, and everywhere the poor show 
 the greatest kindness to one another. 
 
 When they themselves, as well as their parents, are poor,
 
 CONDITION. " 
 
 children have, as a rule, no scruple about letting their 
 parents apply for out-relief. To allow them to go into the 
 workhouse would be differently regarded. There are some 
 parishes in which out-relief is considered a disgrace, and, 
 when this is so, almost any sacrifice will be made to sup- 
 port parents without its aid, but this point of view is the 
 exception. 
 
 Everywhere a good deal is done for old servants. Their 
 care is a recog-uised charge on all industrial or commercial 
 undertakings of character and long standing; it is usually 
 met by the provision of suitable light work at wages which 
 are based rather upon the needs of the recipient than on the 
 value of the services rendered. This kiudly social usage 
 applies in town as well as country, but less efficiently, and at 
 best is very far from covering the whole ground. It mani- 
 festly demands industrial stability ; and depends, as to the 
 employers, on persistency of business management in one 
 family or under one tradition, and, as to the employed, in 
 continuity of occupation under the same master. These 
 factors, though they are still found in the country, become 
 less common every day in modern industrial undertakings, 
 and are apt to be undermined by the responsibilities thrown 
 by law on employers in case of accidents ; for an old man 
 becomes " too expensive to be employed." 
 
 In town and country alike nearly every church has a 
 certain amount of money to distribute among the sick and 
 poor ; and of this fund, as well as of ordinary private 
 charity, the aged obtain a large share. But stress is 
 almost invariably laid, in the reports received, on the impos- 
 sibility of doing anything adequate for the chronic wants 
 of old age; and sickness or temporary distress are 
 recognised as having a prior claim on the funds. Many 
 parishes have dole endowments, but it is exceptional for 
 the amount available for any individual to exceed ;i Eew 
 shillings in the year. Most frequently the gift takes the 
 shape of coals or blankets in winter; sometimes it is
 
 8 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 bread that is given. In many of these distributions widows 
 with children are more considered than the old. 
 
 It is, however, quite evident that in the aggregate a great 
 deal is done either by church funds, endowments, or private 
 charity, to supplement insufficient incomes, or the inade- 
 quacy of out-relief. In many places nearly all the recipients 
 of out-relief are said to have charitable help as well, and in 
 others this is the case with almost all the poor over 65, 
 whether " on the parish " or not. The amount given may be 
 small, as is the help from children, but combined with the 
 usual measure of parochial relief, these gifts suffice to raise 
 the standard of life just above starvation point. 
 
 The only charities which afford adequate support are the 
 alms-houses in the cases when to house-room is added an 
 allowance in money. These refuges for the old, which are 
 found in almost all parts of the country, are eagerly com- 
 peted for, with or without an allowance. 
 
 Dependence of large numbers on parish relief, indoor or 
 out, is general, though the proportion of paupers among 
 the aged varies very greatly in different places. It is 
 usually regarded as a matter of course, and often claimed 
 very much as a right. Old men, especially widowers or 
 single men, accept indoor relief in greater numbers than 
 old women ; they are, as has been said, less able to manage 
 for themselves, and their relatives are less willing to house 
 them. Often, too, the powers of old men are much more 
 impaired than those of women, before they seek relief of 
 any kind. 
 
 There is some clash of evidence as to whether those who 
 receive out-relief, or those just above them in the social 
 scale who do not receive it, are the worst off. Perhaps 
 there is not much to choose as to privations. We may trust 
 that the struggle for independence brings a mental blessing, 
 but for those who are trying to keep a little property 
 together and outwit fate, the struggle is often as hopeless 
 as it is severe.
 
 CONDITION. ( J 
 
 The worst cases of destitution are connected with in- 
 temperance, and in some of the large towns and mining 
 districts we are told that thriftlessness and betting go 
 together, but the condition of poverty among the old is far 
 too general to accommodate itself to any such explanations. 
 Among the wage-earning classes most of those who survive 
 are poor in old age, and there is no reason to suppose that 
 the survivors are worse people than those who die early. 
 
 In comparing the present condition of the aged with 
 that of the past a great variety of opinions are expressed. 
 In the great industrial centres of population they seem 
 undoubtedly to be worse off than twenty years ago, and we 
 are reminded of a remark made by Sir Frederick Eden in 
 his great book on The State of the Poor, written just one 
 hundred years ago. He asserts that " manufactures and 
 commerce are the true parents of our national poor/' and 
 paradox though it seem, the sources of our wealth are still 
 prolific of the same sad progeny.* 
 
 We may hope that evils largely due to changing circum- 
 
 * The passage is so remarkable that I cannot refrain from quoting it 
 in full :— 
 
 " When manufactures became firmly established it is remarkable 
 
 that the existence of Poor was first noticed by the Legislature 
 
 Manufactures, although they added to the capital stock of the nation, yet 
 by creating a necessity for free hands, and consequently enabling men to 
 make use of the most valuable of all property, their own industry, subjected 
 those, who were in any ways incapacitated from availing themselves of that 
 fund, to the miserable alternative of starving independently. 
 
 " Without the most distant idea, therefore, of disparaging the numberless 
 benefits derived to this country from manufactures and commerce, the result 
 of this investigation seems to lead to this inevitable conclusion, that, 
 manufactures and commerce are the true parents of our national Poor ; and 
 to justify the (by no means unreasonable or captious) opinion of those who 
 think that it is particularly incumbent on persons engaged in manufactures 
 and commerce to help to maintain them. To complain, however, that they 
 have, by the inequality which industry must ever occasion, been tbe source 
 of misery to some members of the community, is to complain of the causes 
 which have raised us to an unexampled pitch of national prosperity, and of 
 the consequences which are necessarily attached to it." — The State of the 
 Poor, by Sir Frederick Eden, 17'.)7. Vol. 1., p. 61.
 
 io mi: aged rooi;. 
 
 stances may ultimately be mitigated by better adjustment, 
 and that higher wages in the active years of life may be made 
 to yield a more adequate provision for old age ; but at present 
 the aged are suffering from the increased and increasing 
 difficulty of finding employment, and have for themselves 
 no such compensation. The very changes which have 
 benefited younger people operate directly against the old. 
 Children may be better able to help, but often, it is asserted, 
 show less willingness to do so. It is, however, probable 
 that in one way or other the aged poor share in the higher 
 standard of comfort which prevails among the working 
 classes as a whole. 
 
 The better organisation of charity and a truer under- 
 standing of the needs of the poor, are also said to have 
 tended effectually to ameliorate their condition in late 
 years ; but there is still much to be desired in this respect. 
 
 On the whole, bad as things now are, the balance, in 
 country districts at any rate, will be found to be in favour of 
 the present as compared with ten or fifteen years ago ; and 
 those who are in a position to compare the condition of the 
 aged poor and of the poor generally in our times with the 
 state of things thirty or forty years ago, record a still more 
 striking improvement.
 
 CONDITIO^, ll 
 
 III. 
 
 PROPORTION OF THE OLD IN RECEIPT OF PARISH RELIEF. 
 
 Most of the official statistics of pauperism are based on 
 the " one day " count, which, if the object in view be to 
 measure the burthen of pauperism at any time, is manifestly 
 the best test we can take ; but not so if our object is to 
 estimate the extent of pauperism, for every one who is 
 assisted at all, during any period of time considered, is 
 pauperised more or less ; and neither the amount expended 
 on each person, nor the number of days that the assistance 
 continues, are measures of the degree of demoralisation. 
 It may, indeed, be held that, to ask often is more demoral- 
 ising than to receive continuously. The year's count, i.e., 
 the enumeration of all those who applied during a twelve 
 month, was adopted for the special return, on ■which the 
 figures that follow are based (Mr. Ritchie's return ]8 ( .'2). 
 It is a convenient basis, as including all the seasons, and 
 seems to do rough justice. There are errors and inaccu- 
 racies in it, but they are found on both, sides, and will to 
 some extent balance each other. 
 
 The difference between the one day and the year's count 
 indicates the character of relief given. Where there is 
 a high proportion of difference for the twelve months 
 enumeration (as in London), the relief must include more 
 occasional cases, and occasional cases (excluding medical 
 relief) are nearly always relieved indoors. There is, in this 
 respect, a regular scale from urban to rural — the more 
 urban the locality the more intermittent the relief, and the 
 greater the proportion treated indoors. It is doubtful 
 whether more or less acute poverty is indicated by this. 
 
 The proportion of those over 65 in England and Wales, 
 who, in the course of a twelve month, receive parish relief 
 in some form or other, is about 30 per cent. The rural 
 districts are, as an average, just about this level, and so 
 are the provincial urban (list rids. The rate for London is 
 7 or 8 per cent, higher, and the mixed urban and rural, as
 
 12 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 a counterpoise to this, are 5 or 6 per cent, lower than the 
 general average. These percentages are for indoor and out- 
 door relief together. If we separate the two we find that as 
 the one increases the other decreases. We see indoor relief at 
 its maximum in London, where no less than 30 per cent, of 
 the entire number of old men and 18 per cent, of old women 
 are on the indoor list. In provincial towns these rates are 
 halved, and as the rural element enters so the percentage 
 of those relieved iu the workhouse decreases. Out-relief 
 reverses this order. In London only 7 per cent, of old 
 men are relieved out of doors, but the rate rises in rural 
 sections to over 18 per cent. ; of old women, 15| per cent, 
 receive outdoor relief in London as compared with 32 per 
 cent, in the rural unions. 
 
 These facts show, I think, that different policies of 
 administration are in the main the result of deep-seated 
 differences of condition between town and country life ; and 
 this conclusion seems to be borne out by other comparisons 
 I was able to make, all of which may be found in my 
 previous volume. 
 
 Although the decreasing rates of general pauperism are 
 perhaps partly delusive, being to some extent due to an in- 
 crease in intermittent as opposed to continuous forms of relief, 
 yet these decreases are far too clearly marked to be passed 
 over. The reduction between 1881 and 1891 was about 
 18 per cent, in urban districts (excluding London), 12 per 
 cent, in semi-rural, and 8 per cent, in quite rural places. 
 In London, however, there was practically no improvement 
 in the decade, nor has there been any since. 
 
 It is certain that pauperism in old age has not decreased 
 as much as general pauperism, and it is noticeable that 
 crowded towns and cities — the growth of modern life — 
 although they contain the smallest proportion of old persons, 
 show the worst and most hopeless conditions ; but that there 
 has been a considerable improvement is shown by the 
 official returns as to the non-able bodied, who are, to a 
 great extent, the old.
 
 CONDITION. 
 
 13 
 
 IV. 
 
 EFFECT OF ADVANCING YEARS ON PAUPERISM. 
 
 The official returns indicate that there are in receipt of 
 relief, of those — 
 
 Under 16 years of age about 22 per 1000 
 
 From 16-60 
 „ 60-65 
 „ 65-70 
 „ 70-75 
 „ 75-80 
 Over 80 
 
 9 
 
 55 
 110 
 
 188 
 264 
 304 
 
 These figures are all based on the one day count. The 
 series demonstrates the effect of increasing age on pauperism, 
 and no words can add to, or detract much, from their force. 
 Pauperism at 60 to 65 is six times the average rate from 
 16 to 60, but is itself only one- sixth of that which is 
 found after 80. 
 
 Taking instead the twelve months count, and stating the 
 figures per cent, instead of per 1,000, the best estimate 
 I am able to make of those who receive more or less of 
 parish relief, is for those — 
 
 From 20-60 . . . from 1 to 8 per cent. 
 
 ,, 60-65 ... about 10 ,, 
 
 „ 65-70 ... „ 20 „ 
 
 „ 70-75 ... „ 30 „ 
 
 Over 75 ... nearly 40 ,, 
 
 The increasing rates apply to decreasing numbers, and 
 the largest numbers of pauperised old people are found 
 from 70 to 75, there being about 130,000 of these ages in 
 England and Wales, as compared to 117,000 between 65
 
 14 
 
 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 and 70, and 101,000 between 60 and 6o. From 75 to 80 
 there are about 92,000 and over 80 about 62,000. 
 
 As these figures will be found to be of importance 
 when we come to consider methods of relief, I append 
 the whole table from which they are drawn, and which, 
 though partly based on estimate, is sufficiently correct for 
 all practical purposes. (See The Aged Poor, page 43.) 
 
 Number of Paupers at each age — 12 months' count — compared with 
 the whole population in England and Wales. 
 
 
 Under 16. 
 
 16—59. | 
 
 00- 
 
 65— 
 
 70— 
 
 75- 
 
 80— 
 
 Total. 
 
 Male ... 
 Female . 
 
 55,727 
 56,055 
 
 ! 
 
 106,s-_>7 
 80,139 
 
 27,734 
 17,584 
 
 24.122 
 14,895 
 
 22,304 
 14,235 
 
 13.884 
 9,289 
 
 8.180 
 7,235 
 
 258,778 
 199,432 
 
 Total 
 
 111.7S2' 
 
 186,966 
 
 45,318 
 
 39,017 
 
 36,539 
 
 23,173 
 
 15,415 
 
 458,210 
 
 Out-door — 
 
 Male ... 
 Female . 
 
 186.007 
 187.222 
 
 75.922 
 145,160 
 
 11.110 
 
 36.078 
 
 18.803 
 52,648 
 
 27.754 
 
 59,087 
 
 22.817 
 40,404 
 
 14.533 
 
 26,237 
 
 356.946 
 546,836 
 
 Total 
 
 373.229 
 
 221.082 
 
 47.188 
 
 71,451 
 
 86.841 
 
 63,221 
 
 40.770 
 
 903,782 
 
 Medical only — 
 Male ... 
 Female . 
 
 34.190 
 34.386 
 
 50.157 
 57.901 
 
 4,637 
 4,334 
 
 2.889 
 4,189 
 
 7.078 
 
 3,254 
 4,057 
 
 2,643 
 3.000 
 
 2.447 
 
 2.99s 
 
 100,217 
 110.865 
 
 Total 
 
 68,576 
 
 108,058 
 
 8.971 
 
 7.311 
 
 5,643 
 
 5,445 
 
 211,082 
 
 Total Paupers — 
 Male ... 
 Female . 
 
 275,924 
 277,663 
 
 232,906 
 283.200 
 
 43.481 
 57,996 
 
 45.814 
 71.732 
 
 53.312 
 77.379 
 
 39,344 
 52,693 
 
 25.160 
 36.470 
 
 715,941 
 857,133 
 
 Total 
 
 553.587 
 
 516,106 101.477 
 
 117.546 130.691 
 
 92.037 
 
 61,630 
 
 1,573,074 
 
 Xon -Paupers — 
 Male ... 
 Female 
 
 5,089,S03 
 5,119,918 
 
 7.491.716 313.383 
 8,086,814 358,019 
 
 213,861 
 240,541 
 
 131.909 
 155,314 
 
 62.394 
 78,902 
 
 34,794 
 52,083 
 
 13.337,860 
 14,091,591 
 
 Total 
 
 10,209,721 1 
 10,763,308 1 
 
 5,578,530 
 
 671,402 
 
 454.402 
 
 287,223 
 
 141,296 
 233,333 
 
 86.877 
 
 27,429.451 
 
 Total popu-1 
 latioD, 189] i 
 
 6,094,036 
 
 772,879 
 
 571,948 
 
 417,914 
 
 148,507 
 
 29,002,525
 
 CONDITION. 15 
 
 Y. 
 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TO SPECIAL CONSIDERATION. 
 
 The number of paupers among the old is no complete 
 measure, but only a symptom, of the existing poverty. In 
 addition to those who seek parish relief there are many 
 more who just contrive to live without it. Every class 
 yields some paupers in old age, but there is a considerable 
 section of the population whose contribution to pau- 
 perism, is very small. The great bulk of the impoverished, 
 whether paupers or not, are drawn from those who have 
 been wage earners or small traders. It is thus not too 
 much to say that of these classes in England fully half, 
 if they live to old age, are so poor as to be, from 65 
 onwards, if not paupers, on the very verge of pauperism. 
 Nor can it be accounted their fault that this is so. I do 
 not doubt that it is strictly possible for almost anyone who is 
 at once sober and. industrious and. prudent, to lay by, or 
 make provision in some way for old age. With sufficient 
 self-restraint and. persistency of effort, pauperism may be 
 avoided and independence secured, but at best, for those 
 who earn low wages, old age when it comes will probably 
 be a time of great difficulty. They will almost surely 
 remain among the numbers of those who end their lives in 
 poverty. To escape from this category a man must have 
 very exceptional gifts. Such success could not possibly be 
 the common lot of humanity. 
 
 Modern conditions of industry do not favour the aged. 
 Work is driven faster, and needs more nerve, and its 
 changing methods continually displace the old. The 
 community may gain, but the old men suffer; hence their 
 claim to special consideration. The case of women is 
 even stronger, for they may spend lives of tho utmost 
 social utility with hardly any opportunity of saving for 
 themselves.
 
 IS THE AGED POOR. 
 
 VI. 
 
 TREATMENT OF THE OLD UNDER THE POOR LAW. 
 
 There are two distinct views expressed on this subject, 
 both as regards indoor and outdoor cases. Workhouses 
 are either described as inhuman " bastilles/' in which old 
 people drag out a hopeless existence ; or we are told of the 
 warmth and comfort of these establishments, and are 
 warned of the danger that must attend making the lot of 
 those who are admitted, so much better than that of the 
 independent poor ; and we hear denounced as a growing 
 abuse the use of the sick asylums by those who, with a 
 little forethought, might very well provide medical care for 
 themselves. While, as to outdoor relief, both sides freely 
 use the word u cruelty " : the one to characterise the 
 refusal of relief in this form, the other because of the 
 inadequate amounts given. 
 
 These are party cries — phrases to emblazon on banners — 
 they are not always used honestly, but each of them con- 
 tains a modicum of truth. One cannot be conducted over 
 even the best managed workhouse in England, seeing 
 everything in the most favourable way and in the best 
 possible order, without a feeling of utter depression; so 
 monotonous is the existence; so essentially comfortless; so 
 often unrelieved by pleasant human relationships. The large 
 rooms are scientifically ventilated and carefully warmed ; 
 cleanliness is carried to perfection; wholesome food is 
 supplied in ample quantities, and clothing is sufficient 
 and good enough of its kind. But what old person who 
 has been accustomed to a genuine home, however poor, 
 would not shrink from such a life. Getting up and 
 lying down to sound of bell, and expected to partake 
 (like hungry schoolboys) of regular meals at regular 
 hours based upon a dietary scale. In practice no other 
 system is possible, and when the very best that can be
 
 CONDITION. 17 
 
 done has been done, the Workhouse remains unattractive. 
 Moreover, there are bad as well as good specimens. 
 Much depends on the personal character of the master 
 and those under him, and even if actual tyranny is 
 avoided it is difficult in every case to prevent harsh, 
 callous treatment. These difficulties are all aggravated 
 in large city workhouses. The association of decent old 
 people -with those who have no character at all cannot 
 anywhere be altogether avoided. No satisfactory plan of 
 classification has been yet found. Thus, without being 
 inhuman bastilles, they are dreary and objectionable 
 places of abode, and even though, under popular manage- 
 ment, a good deal more should come to be done for the 
 comfort of the old, it is improbable that the prejudice 
 against the House will break down. It is based far more 
 on love of liberty and the " little things we care about" 
 than on well-being as measured in bread and meat and 
 clean clothing. Degrees of heat, f ahrenheit, do not replace 
 the chimney corner and the glowing fire, nor the 4 
 resources of the sick wards make up for the absence of 
 familiar faces. 
 
 The abuse, if abuse there be, of the sick asylum concerns 
 others rather than the old. There is a consensus of opinion 
 that for the old and ill these institutions are, and ought to 
 be, a real asylum, where all that can be done is done for 
 suffering humanity. Whether, as regards those still in the 
 active years of life, institutions that are practically free 
 public hospitals are socially demoralising or not, is a moot 
 point which I need not now discuss. 
 
 Then as to the "cruelties" spoken of in connection with 
 out-relief. There seems to be but little justification for the 
 charge on either side. If guardians refuse out-relief on 
 principle, it is always found that an effort is made, either 
 by the guardians themselves or by other members of the 
 charitable public, to supplement what may be done by the 
 relatives of the would-be recipients, or by the people
 
 18 THE AGED P007?. 
 
 themselves, so that the " House " is in most cases avoided. 
 Under this head the charge of cruelty breaks down. 
 There results a painful struggle and a pinched life, but 
 it is no different in character, so far as I can see, from 
 that which is denounced as cruel in connection with the 
 " inadequacy " of out-relief by those who would prefer to 
 refuse it altogether. In both cases the poor person draws 
 upon all possible resources in the effort to maintain a life 
 of freedom outside the workhouse. In the one case the 
 public purse is slightly drawn upon, and in the other not at 
 all. What material difference does this make ? It may be 
 economically or socially undesirable to give a little help 
 and then leave the recipients to fight their own battle, 
 but it is surely sheer nonsense to call it more cruel 
 than refusing to give help at all. At the worst, the 
 workhouse, with its warmed rooms, plentiful food, and 
 decent clothing, is at all times available. It may be 
 demanded that private charity, as well as public relief, 
 should be given carefully with due regard to the circum- 
 stances of each case, but more than this cannot be asked, 
 and charges of cruelty bandied about do not strengthen the 
 case on either side of this question. 
 
 A grievance, of which much is made, is the separation of 
 old married folk in the workhouse. The law provides 
 otherwise. Any old couple who ask for it have the right 
 to special quarters, and some workhouses have these very 
 nicely arranged; in others the system is nob at all encour- 
 aged, and separation is still much more usual than not. 
 The fact is, that many old couples prefer not to live on 
 such Darby and Joan terms, while others do not know 
 their rights, or would wait to be asked. It, however, 
 remains part of the case against indoor as compared to 
 •outdoor relief. Married life in a home outside, among 
 children and friends and neighbours, demands far less 
 perfect sympathy 'between the two old people than exist- 
 ence in the married quarters of a workhouse.
 
 CONDITION. 
 
 19 
 
 On the other hand, the advocates of indoor relief point 
 to the advantages of the workhouse in cases of infirmity, 
 saying truly that there are many, especially old men, who 
 cannot be properly cared for in the homes of the people. 
 But they go much too far when they say that there are 
 very few of those now in workhouses to whom this does 
 not apply. 
 
 In the towns the workhouses are overflowing, and more 
 and more accommodation is demanded for the sick, while 
 in the country many of the houses are almost empty. This 
 makes some difference in workhouse management and 
 comfort, as does the possibility in country places of a 
 little outdoor work in gardening; but in its main lines 
 workhouse life is everywhere the same. 
 
 Out-relief is given almost everywhere, more or less, 
 though far more in rural than in urban districts, and, 
 apart from indirect evils, is not unsuccessful, giving more 
 for the money spent than do the indoor establishments. 
 The allowance made varies mostly from 2s to o.v a week, 
 and as a rule it is not given unless there is a home or some 
 other resources, which, together with the parish allowance, 
 will provide a bare livelihood.
 
 PAKT II.-PEOPOSALS.
 
 PART II.— PROPOSALS. 
 I. 
 
 REFORMS OF THE POOR LAW. 
 
 (1) The Encouragement of Independence. 
 
 The highest authorities on Poor Law Administration shrink, 
 one and all, from pension schemes. They point to the 
 results in certain unions where outdoor pauperism has been 
 gradually abolished without any concurrent increase in the 
 numbers relieved indoors, and with a very marked effect in 
 the reduction of old-age pauperism, and claim that the 
 figures on which the need for a pension system rests are 
 swollen by the careless giving of relief. They have confi- 
 dence in the sufficiency of their methods. " We are," they 
 say, " on the right road; why be tempted to leave it, follow- 
 ing false lights ? All now admit the principles of the great 
 reform of 1834, in adherence to which lies the promise of a 
 sound and steady improvement. We have survived the first 
 outburst of unpopularity and abuse. The people are now 
 accustomed to our methods. There is no outcry on their 
 part for change. The outcry is from above and of a 
 theoretic and impracticable character." 
 
 These authorities wish to see less assistance to the old 
 from the public purse rather than more, and accordingly 
 object to all schemes of old ago pensions as pernicious as 
 well as unnecessary. 
 
 I do not dispute the success attained in country places 
 by the strict anti-out-relief policy carefully and consistently 
 carried out, in enormously reducing pauperism and presum- 
 ably raising the standard, of life and of independence. In 
 towns it is not so certain. Nevertheless, I his policy is useless
 
 24 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 as a specific even in the rural districts, because only in rare 
 instances is it applied ; and the reason of this is that there 
 are few men found capable of carrying out these principles, 
 and such men when found can seldom secure consistent 
 popular support. The ideas are not new. For fifty years, 
 at least, we have never been without some such example. 
 It was Sir George Nicholas reforms at Southwell which led 
 directly to the Commission and Report of 1834, into which 
 he breathed his spirit. Dr. Chalmers played the same part 
 at Glasgow, and there have been other instances since, 
 besides those of Bradfield and Brixworth, Stepney, White- 
 chapel, and St. George's-in-the-East, so noted in our 
 days. 
 
 Theory, precept, and example are all perfect, and yet the 
 teaching does not, and has never spread, and its advantages 
 are invariably most questioned in the districts where it has 
 scored its greatest successes. The report of 1834 has, in- 
 deed, had a great effect on the law as well as on the usage, 
 and if the evils of out-relief as now given were seriously 
 felt, an investigation of the same character resulting in 
 another such report, might lead to further improvement in 
 usage as well as in law. Meanwhile, little, if any, trust- 
 worthy advance is being made in this direction. If some 
 unions advance, others fall back. There is already an entire 
 change at Brixworth, and to some extent at Stepney, and 
 the rest are no more safe from reaction in the future than 
 Southwell, after the withdrawal of Sir George Nicholas 
 influence, or Glasgow since the times of Dr. Chalmers.* 
 
 * Dr. Chalmers's correspondence shows how bitterly he felt his isolation 
 in this matter. The following almost piteous letter was written by him 
 in 1841 to his friend, Professor Duncan, who had suggested the objection 
 that the system pursued at Glasgow had not been imitated elsewhere, and 
 invited Chalmers to write a brief explanation on this point. 
 
 " I am much disappointed with your letter. I write not in jest, but in 
 sad and solemn earnest. You grounded an objection to my system on 
 the fact of its not being followed by others, which is to say, that after 
 being satisfied with the scheme, when brought to the standard of reason
 
 PROPOSALS. 25 
 
 The success attained is in each instance that which 
 invariably attends the right rule of one man, entirely 
 devoted to his work, to whatever department of human 
 affairs it is applied. The results are always marvellous, 
 and often, as again and again in model industrial com- 
 munities, give rise to high hopes, but rarely outlast the 
 peculiar combination of faculty and opportunity upon 
 which tbey depend, and so lead to disappointment. In this 
 case the demand made on human nature is in every way too 
 great. Too much is asked from the administrator, and 
 too much also from the people, and from both the demand 
 is of a contradictory character. The administrator needs 
 to be at once kind and stern, and from the people is asked 
 at the same time prudential regard for their own future 
 and effacement of self in response to the claims of help- 
 less relatives. Those who are most ready with help for 
 
 and experience, as you profess in the present instance to have clone, you 
 will then refer to another standard — that is, the opinion of men blind and 
 prejudiced; or, in other words, after it has made full proof of its own 
 absolute soundness, it must be rejected because it happens to be surrounded 
 by a number of dunderheads. . . . 
 
 " I have met with nothing that has made me so heartless and despair- 
 ing since I read Alison on Population. If he, a literary man on the spot, 
 with the thing before his eyes, and you a literary man at a distance, with 
 the thing set in true description before you, can still shut your eyes, not 
 to the reasons but to the facts of the case, pray where is my encouragement 
 to writing any more about it, or for composing that address which you 
 with such glaring incongruity, recommend to me? I will write no more, 
 and have had enough of vexation and annoyance in this weary struggle of 
 a quarter of a century to make me cease from men and betake myself to 
 some of those purer and higher regions of thought, where the provocations 
 of all further controversy with hasty and superficial thinkers will not reach 
 me. I have no heart to speak and write the same things a thousand and 
 one times. O that is wearisome, wearisome, wearisome ! " 
 
 An extract from a letter written by Carlyle to Dr. Chalmers about the 
 time, puts the question, after the manner of Carlyle, " in a nut- 
 shell"— 
 
 "With a Chalmers in every British parish much might be possible! 
 15ut, alas ! what assurance is there that in any one British parish there will 
 ever be another" (The Itev. Dr. W. Hanna's Life of Chalmers).
 
 2(5 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 others arc probably by disposition least likely to save 
 money for their own old age. The lavish may have the 
 virtue of generosity, and the close-fisted that of prudence ; 
 but we cannot- often expect to find all these qualities at 
 once in any one person. Yet if the perfect administration 
 of the Poor Law, which is advocated as a cure for 
 pauperism, fails to bring about this combination, its 
 efficacy in relieving the rates to-day may be only a 
 cause of their being required to-morrow.* 
 
 The poor look forward to the help of friends and 
 neighbours, sons and daughters. It may be well that it 
 should be so. It may be desirable that the feelings of 
 mutual kindness and brotherly aid should prevail, as they 
 so largely do, even to the overcoming of the saving 
 instinct. But when we trust to the prevalence of such 
 feelings for the present relief of the rates, it must be 
 remembered that we do very much to encourage the 
 prolongation and extension of recklessness among the 
 poor. 
 
 The enforcement by law of a policy, the success of which 
 depends on a concatenation of men and circumstances 
 which no legislation could create, would be hopeless. 
 
 If we are to reduce poor relief everywhere to the scale 
 granted under the rule of Mr. Bland-Garland and Mr. 
 Albert Pell, it can only be by first simplifying the problem 
 with which the Guardians generally have to deal, and by 
 then putting pressure on them in the required direction. 
 Both simplification and pressure, as I shall attempt to 
 
 * A young girl of my acquaintance, earning 10s a month in service, 
 sent for some time 8-s a month to her poor and aged mother. On entering 
 service she had been provided by the kindness of a lady with an outfit of 
 clothes. She was laying by nothing for their renewal, reserving for her 
 own use only 2s a month of her earnings. No doubt her conduct would 
 have had the hearty approval of an enlightened Board of Guardians in 
 the Union inhabited by her mother, yet it was laying the foundations of 
 possible future chargeability for herself.
 
 proposals. 27 
 
 show, may be secured with the endowment of old 'age, 
 and bring about the entire abolition of out-relief. 
 
 Without such aid much advance in this direction is not 
 to be expected ; for, by contrast with indoor relief, outdoor 
 has many advantages. It offers for those who, without 
 being able to earn a living, are still able to clean and cook 
 for themselves, a much more desirable existence. They can 
 still remain members of the society to which they are 
 accustomed, can still confer as well as receive neighbourly 
 favours, mind a baby, sit up with the sick, chop firewood, 
 or weed the garden. They are not cut off from the 
 sympathies of daily existence, and their presence is often 
 a valuable ingredient in the surrounding life. When the 
 end comes, the presence of well-known faces, the sound 
 of well-known voices, sooth and solace the last hours. The 
 fact of pauperism does not often intrude ; it is never 
 alluded to. 
 
 These advantages, combined with its apparent cheapness 
 as compared to cost of workhouse maintenance, have 
 given the system a strong hold on public opinion, and 
 there are many who advocate as a cure for the evils that 
 are admitted, a little more liberality under the present law. 
 For them " the poor are always with us." To relieve this 
 poverty is all their care ; and to avoid laying too heavy 
 a burthen on their charitable world, they would wish the 
 whole community to contribute through rates or taxes. 
 That they may aggravate the evil they seek to cure hardly 
 occurs to them. 
 
 It may, however, be possible to use out-relief without 
 abusing it, and this ground is taken up by many guardians 
 of the poor who, distrusting theory and avoiding extremes, 
 seek only to make the best of things as they are. Action 
 so conceived deserves to succeed — and does succeed. To 
 it, I think, may be credited much of the improved condi- 
 tions of life of which the decrease; in pauperism is one 
 symptom. It is most successful where private charity can
 
 28 THE AGED POOE. 
 
 be relied upon for the cases of poverty and distress least 
 suited for relief from the rates, whether indoor or out. 
 When this is so, if the guardians lay down reasonable rules 
 for their own action and steadily adhere to them, private 
 effort of every kind is at once regulated and stimulated. 
 Unfortunately, it is apt to fail where poverty is greatest. 
 But aided by such an endowment of old age as I shall 
 propose, it might succeed everywhere and be compatible 
 with the entire abolition of out-relief. 
 
 (2) The Encouragement of the Deserving. 
 
 The improbability of an anti-out-relief reform of the 
 Poor Law, without some extraneous aid, is emphasised by 
 the fact that greater liberality in out-relief is a far more 
 popular proposal, and, in the judgment of many, the only 
 practical solution of the difficulty in our day. Those who 
 rely on assisted thrift, whose schemes cannot possibly take 
 effect for many years, almost all turn in this direction. 
 What is in every case suggested is that there should be 
 more consideration for, and more liberal treatment of, the 
 " deserving" poor. In effect the argument is this : let us 
 give every facility and some substantial assistance to those 
 who are now young (and to all who come after) to enable 
 them to provide securely for their own old age, and if they 
 fail to do so let them suffer the consequences. But for the 
 old of our day, who have had no such opportunities, let us 
 relax a little and turn out-relief into pensions for the 
 deserving — for those, in fact, who it might be supposed 
 would have saved if the chances now to be offered to the 
 young had been open to themselves. 
 
 The argument is hollow. The difficulties, moral and 
 material, in the way of a complete system of voluntary 
 insurance for old age amount to impossibility. It is 
 doubtful if any premium would induce the }"Oung to enter 
 generally upon such an undertaking, and quite certain that
 
 PROPOSALS. 29 
 
 many lapses would occur if the system involved a subscrip- 
 tion sustained over a lifetime. It would be precisely those 
 who would need assistance in old age for whom this pro- 
 posal would prove a broken reed. Consequently the 
 necessity for immediate relief would grow no less ; its evil 
 effect upon character would remain, and the temporary 
 extension of out-relief would be prolonged in generation 
 after generation of paupers, whether deserving or otherwise. 
 It is, however, held to be absurd to grant pensions, 
 whether wholly or partly provided out of general funds, 
 to any not in actual want, and a distinct encourage- 
 ment of evil to grant them to the undeserving. These 
 ideas — that poverty and desert should always be the condi- 
 tions of relief — tend rather to an elaboration of the Poor 
 Law, before which to-day all destitute people are equal, and 
 would aim, by classifying those who ask its aid and varying 
 the awards, to make them as often a mark of merit as a 
 stigma of disgrace. This seems to me an impossible ideal. 
 I can imagine no court of inquiry that could be trusted.
 
 30 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 II. 
 
 ENCOURAGEMENT OF SAVING EY BONUS ON 
 DEFERRED ANNUITIES. 
 
 There can be no question but that the encouragement of 
 this particular form of saving is up-hill work. There is no 
 spontaneous demand for annuities beginning at an advanced 
 age. "I shall never live till then" is a pessimism very 
 natural to the young, especially as it justifies the immediate 
 enjoyment of the money which is demanded for a remote 
 and uncertain contingency. Nevertheless, a certain pro- 
 portion do survive. Of those who reach 25 about half survive 
 to reach Go ; and this is true of all classes. Of those who 
 live to Go, or later, a very large proportion — among the 
 working classes, perhaps, not less than half — come upon 
 the rates ; it would therefore be very much to the interest 
 of the State if they could be induced to insure. 
 
 " Make them," said Canon Blackley, boldly. Let the 
 provision of the sum, which, aided by some reasonable 
 contribution from the State, would provide for maintenance 
 of the survivors in old age, be a first charge on the early 
 earnings of all young men — and perhaps young women 
 also. This scheme is really a very clever one, as recog- 
 nising that the pinch of old age is matched in most lives 
 by a relatively lavish expenditure in youth, before the age 
 of marriage ; but it has been laid aside even by its author. 
 Compulsion of this kind is admitted to be politically 
 impossible. 
 
 " Persuade them," said Mr. Chamberlain. Make the 
 scheme attractive. Include in it a provision for early death 
 as well as protracted life. Let it fall in with the work of 
 the Friendly Societies, and the superannuation schemes of 
 great employers. Be content to begin on a small scale, 
 relying on the springing up of a demand for a good article 
 at half price.
 
 PROPOSALS. 31 
 
 But the proposal is not without its difficulties. Canon 
 Blackley's method included in their old age every one 
 who, having earned money in youth, survived; and was 
 thus calculated to provide for all who might come to poverty 
 in old age. On the voluntary plan there could be no certainty 
 of this, indeed there would be a strong probability that those 
 who took advantage of the offer would be precisely those 
 who would in any case be least likely to trouble the reliev- 
 ing officer. It has also become manifest that the Friendly 
 Societies, whose support was counted on, are hostile to the 
 proposal, partly from independent pride, but mostly from 
 a well-grounded fear that any kind of partnership with the 
 State would involve interference in the management of their 
 affairs, more or less, sooner or later. 
 
 There is also another and a fatal objection — shared this 
 time by the scheme of Canon Blackley — viz., that no benefit 
 ensues for forty years. Canon Blackley might, no doubt, 
 claim that had his idea been put in force when he first 
 proposed it, we should have already traversed fully half the 
 intervening period ; but to the forty years' interval in the 
 other case must be added the delay due to its necessarily 
 gradual application. 
 
 Thus it is that the real essence of these proposals lies in 
 the postscript — in the provisions to be made to mitigate 
 present distress and bridge over this terrible interval of 
 more than an entire generation. The original proposal had 
 at least the merit of cheapness. The State had not actually 
 anything to pay for forty years, and quoted in present day 
 liability the amount would not be very great. But it is 
 quite otherwise whenever we come to deal with the needs 
 of the poor of to-day. I believe it to be beyond the wit of 
 man to find any cheap solution; and any effort to deal 
 with these needs on temporary lines would probably hud 
 to a perilous extension of out-relief. 
 
 It is the less necessary for me to labour this question as 
 plans based on contribution met with very close attention
 
 32 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 from Lord Rothschild's Committee. This Committee was 
 appointed to see whether any such system could be recom- 
 mended, and it was to schemes of this character that they 
 considered themselves limited by the terms of their 
 reference. All were unhesitatingly, though I think 
 unwillingly, condemned, and for this condemnation there is 
 ample reason. 
 
 The Committee did indeed attempt to formulate a plan 
 themselves, brought forward by one of their number and 
 revised; but at the end only to be in its turn rejected. 
 
 None of the contributory schemes touch the case of 
 women to any material extent, women being seldom 
 financially independent to a degree enabling them to 
 contribute to an insurance fund. Yet the claims of women 
 for special assistance in old age are even stronger than 
 those of men.
 
 PEOPOSALS. 33 
 
 III. 
 
 THE ENDOWMENT OF OLD AGE. 
 (1) The Argument. 
 
 Plans for the relief of the aged poor are remarkable for 
 the number of promising paths that lead nowhere. One 
 accepts, perhaps with enthusiasm, the gospel of Dr. 
 Chalmers and Mr. Albert Pell; but walking in their foot- 
 steps, before we have gone far, we find — no thoroughfare. 
 We join merrily (as Robert Louis Stevenson has said) in 
 the " hunt for the deserving poor," but the path of charity 
 leads us into a bog ; again there is no thoroughfare. We 
 struggle with actuarial calculations of deferred annuities, 
 only to find that everyone wishes to eat their cake to-day 
 as well as have it in old age ; and will on no other terms 
 look at any proposals whatever. Again the road is 
 blocked. Or, we strive by special administration to de- 
 pauperise out-relief, and find that the result would be the 
 creation of a superior kind of pauper in addition to, rather 
 than in place of, the existing article. Or, with Lord 
 Rothschild's Committee, we look for a plan by which all 
 modest savings may be made the basis for an addition 
 from the State with no better success. In none of these 
 directions do we find the path we seek. 
 
 Nor has the proposal I advocate been anymore fortunate 
 in this respect. It is, indeed, because of the amount of 
 money required, very likely to meet with some such con- 
 demnation ; very apt, for this and other reasons, to be met 
 with cries of "absurd" and "impossible." But that it is 
 by no means so absurd as it may at first appear, nor 
 dangerous in any way, nor impracticable, is what I hope 
 to show. 
 
 The maintenance of all old people is at present drawn 
 from some or all of the following sources : — Accumu- 
 lations, inherited or saved j insurance, and pay for past 
 
 3
 
 34 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 work ; present earnings ; assistance from children or 
 relatives; charitable assistance; and Poor Law relief. 
 The resulting maintenance is acknowledged to be in very 
 many cases insufficient ; the two last are undesirable, and 
 assistance from children may be pressed too hard. What, 
 then, would be the effect of the introduction into each 
 budget of a small annuity in old age ? 
 
 The problem before us is to increase the total sum 
 available for each old person while decreasing, or if 
 possible doing away with, the amounts drawn from the 
 undesirable sources. 
 
 For financial reasons it would not be possible to make 
 an annuity from the State for all old people anything but 
 small, and even if such a thing were possible it would be 
 altogether undesirable, for the virtue of the proposal 
 depends largely upon the assurance that the springs of 
 individual action will not be adversely affected. 
 
 A general endowment of old age has been spoken of as 
 openly discouraging the population from providing for 
 themselves,* but before accepting any such conclusion I 
 would pray my readers to look at this question with fresh 
 eyes; I would ask them to question their own observation and 
 experience, and consider their own habits of action. What 
 are the usual motives of saving ? By what fears or what 
 hopes inspired ? And with whom do they find these hopes 
 and fears operative ? And then say on how many of those 
 who save to-day would the provision by State interference 
 of a few shillings a week in old age so act as to check 
 savings ? 
 
 It will, I think, hardly be denied that only a very small 
 portion of England's annual accumulations are saved by 
 those in fear of destitution at any time, and that with all 
 
 * Sir Spencer Walpole in the Appendix to the Eeport of Lord Rothschild's 
 Committee.
 
 PROPOSALS. 35 
 
 who save it is more usually other motives and other objects 
 of desire that prevail. Of these objects some may be 
 remote, others near at hand ; but I should question whether 
 any of them lose their force by the removal of the fear of 
 destitution. If they did so lose their force, thrift and 
 prudence with prosperous people would have a short life. 
 Even amongst the quite poor, with whom, if at all, it might 
 be supposed that fear of future destitution would be effec- 
 tive, savings are seldom deliberately made for any object 
 more doubtful or remote than sickness and funeral ex- 
 penses. If money is laid by, the aim is rather the security 
 of position that is afforded by a small balance at the bank. 
 The fact that this will surely be exhausted in old age, 
 if the owner survive, is no stimulus to further accumu- 
 lations, but even the contrary. Nor is striving after 
 security of position the principal motive for saving in this 
 or any other class. Among the poor who save, it is 
 more usually some immediate advantage that is sought, 
 the offspring not of fear, but of hope, for which people 
 are ready to pinch and scrape. In such aims, and 
 not in the dread of being some day destitute, lies the chief 
 cause of thrifty accumulation — at least it is so in England. 
 
 The impulse towards saving, caused by the spirit of 
 enterprise, accompanied by the desire of advancement in 
 life, is potent in the sphere of trade with rich and poor 
 alike. So small is the part that the dread of destitution 
 plays in this development that we continually see men 
 straining credit to the uttermost, even at a very real risk 
 of supervening destitution, rather than abandon their 
 ambitious aims. So that this fear seldom serves either as 
 a motive to urge towards economy or as a bug-bear to 
 restrain from extravagance. 
 
 The possession of some wealth is usually an encourage- 
 ment to the acquisition of more ; and nothing provides so 
 persistent and irresistible an incentive to prudence ;i 
 prolonged experience of comfort. The spiritual truth thai 
 
 3 *
 
 3(5 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 " To him that hath shall be given " is clinched by the 
 worldly observation that "He who has wants more." 
 When the future is secure thrift becomes more attractive, 
 and thus I claim that the certainty of a minimum provision 
 in old age, so far from checking-, would stimulate small 
 savings. 
 
 There are those who would not in any case save at all 
 for their old age. They do not do it now. If they survive 
 they are quite sure to come on the parish. For such we 
 have only the choice of this or that form of public or charit- 
 able maintenance in old age. With them, if improvement 
 is to be made, the habit of saving for nearer objects must 
 be formed before saving for old age can be expected to 
 play any part. Thus, put at the very lowest, the certainty 
 of a few shillings a week in old age, will not prevent any 
 savings that would otherwise be made. 
 
 But there is a very large class just above the lowest 
 who might fairly be expected to save, but do not, or 
 who might well save more, and for more remote and 
 important objects; for this class, with increasing intelli- 
 gence, and savings in hand, a great career opens. It is 
 upon people of this kind that the cei'tainty of a small fixed 
 subsidy in their old age, would, I dare to hope, have a 
 very happy influence. 
 
 Half the objections to the interference of the State in 
 this matter rest upon a hasty impression that the sort of 
 sum spoken of — 5s a week or perhaps less — is all that can 
 be desired in old age; but this, to me, seems a most 
 extraordinary notion. An existence maintained on 4s, or 
 5s, or even 7s a week, would constitute an extremely 
 inadequate ideal in old age. For those who, in their work- 
 ing years, have led the comfortable lives of English 
 working people, three or four times 5s would not exaggerate 
 the aim towards which their savings should be directed. 
 At present the working classes are too often without any 
 such thought at all. Not to survive, is all the ideal they
 
 PROPOSALS. 37 
 
 have. But, nevertheless, half of them do survive, and if 
 the hopeless feeling be removed, and the worse than hope- 
 less final reliance on the Poor Law, with its accursed test 
 of destitution, we might see the better ideal spread down- 
 wards, from class to class, potent to bless their lives in the 
 present as well as in the future. 
 
 May I venture to suggest in general terms what the 
 ideal might be ? It is evident that the old must look 
 for the physical comfort of food and warmth, clothing 
 and house room. Beyond this their aim must include 
 independence. There should be no need for them to ask 
 more than kindness from anyone. The old, no less than 
 the young and middle-aged, should be able to give as well 
 as receive, to grant favours as well as accept them. 
 And when they die it is not enough that funeral expenses 
 should be met ; they should have a little something to leave 
 to those who come after them beyond the money to "put 
 them below the ground." Is this ideal out of reach ? Is 
 it too much to look for ? And is it not worth saving 
 for? 
 
 The buying of a deferred annuity does not fit in very 
 well with such hopes as these, there is something unsatis- 
 factory and even selfish about a plan which concentrates on 
 one purpose only all the value of savings, and partly 
 perhaps on this account, it is an altogether unpopular 
 investment. But as the basis, the backbone, and the 
 safeguard of old age finance, the certainty of some such 
 small weekly provision would be invaluable. It thus comes 
 to be an object of public policy. 
 
 It is gravely asserted by some that independence and 
 self-respect would be lost by the acceptance of a benefit 
 for which the recipient has not himself fully paid. But such 
 a contention is surely preposterous. The rich feel nothing 
 of the sort as regards educational endowments. Or if it is 
 a question of general taxation for public purposes, the 
 benefits of which all may share, we each pay our quota 
 and we all grumble with democratic equality. 
 
 3 f>
 
 38 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 My conclusion, therefore, is that an endowment for all 
 old people paid for out of taxation would, if the amount 
 granted be small, have no adverse but rather a favourable 
 influence on private accumulation, and that the spirit of 
 independence would not suffer. 
 
 Then as to money now received in consideration of past 
 work. It is probable that in any arrangement made with 
 public or municipal servants, school teachers, policemen 
 and others, the extent to which the future was secured by 
 a general pension would be considered. But if less deferred 
 pay were required, it may be supposed that more present 
 pay could be secured. 
 
 Besides such regularly constituted pensioners, there are 
 many old people in the receipt of industrial superannuation 
 allowances more or less charitable in their character, though 
 very often given as an acknowledgment and recognition 
 of past services. These in some cases take the shape of 
 a non-economic wage-payment for some easy, or, 
 perhaps, merely nominal work suited to be an old man's 
 occupation. The certainty of a small pension from the 
 State would undoubtedly be taken into account by those 
 whose object is to provide for the declining years of an 
 old servant and a smaller allowance might serve; but the 
 fact that there was something to meet — something not in 
 itself sufficient for maintenance, nor available as soon as 
 might be desired, but enough to form the nucleus of a 
 secure livelihood, would very much facilitate and encourage 
 action of this kind. I, therefore, believe that the old 
 generally would probably gain rather than lose under this 
 head; and the State should, I think, encourage this ten- 
 dency by providing the machinery needed for contributions 
 in aid of pensions, either by way of increasing the amount 
 to be received or enabling the pension to take effect at an 
 earlier age. 
 
 The effect on insurance would be similar. The provision 
 would be facilitated, and the benefit to be secured would
 
 PROPOSALS. 39 
 
 be brought more clearly into view by being specially con- 
 centrated upon the years directly preceding pension age — 
 those years of difficulty that must very commonly intervene 
 between industrial breakdown and ultimate financial break- 
 down. To meet these difficulties, which are usually 
 connected with sickness and debility, insurance is by far the 
 most suitable device, and if resorted to will leave money 
 savings unexhausted for the benefit of old age. The 
 Friendly Societies would have a wide field here. The 
 object is very tangible, the danger to be insured against 
 easily grasped by the imagination, as is also the sure 
 haven if pension age can be reached with unexhausted 
 resources. The cost, too, of such insurance would be 
 comparatively small. I, therefore, believe that more and 
 not less insurance would result, and what is even more 
 important, there would be greater certainty that benefits 
 paid for would be secured. Failure of Friendly Societies 
 to meet their engagements would be no longer excusable. 
 
 As to present earnings, and the effect of pensions on 
 wages, views are sometimes expressed that would be fatal 
 if they were true. It has been held that those in receipt 
 of pensions will, by so much, obtain less wages, and that 
 those who are not } T et entitled to a pension will suffer 
 with them. Finally, pushing this contention still further, 
 it is said that the whole standard of wages and earnings 
 throughout life will be lowered if the full burthen of 
 maintenance in old age is lessened in any degree. In 
 meeting these views I have at least one comfort. Those 
 who bring them forward are also prone to inveigh 
 against the socialistic character of what is proposed, as a 
 deliberate transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. 
 Whereas if wages are to be adversely affected it must be the 
 employer or consumer who would profit, and not the poor, 
 by so futile a proceeding. 
 
 To a certain socialistic transfer I plead guilty. If pensions
 
 40 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 are provided out of ordinary taxation, and if the burthen 
 of taxation falls approximately according' to means, 
 then the pensions of the poor will be paid partly from 
 the taxation of the rich. Even if pensions are paid 
 equally to all, still the rich, as a class, would pay more, 
 while the poor, as a class, would pay less than their 
 pensions would actually cost. This is equally true as 
 regards all the needs of the community for which taxation 
 provides. The rich in return for the poor rates paid 
 by them have only the same claims, in case of need, on 
 the workhouse as the poor. I do not think that in the 
 case of pensions the result would actually be offset to any 
 great extent by concurrent reductions in wages. As to 
 those in receipt of pensions there might be some who would 
 in consequence be paid less — such, for instance, as care- 
 takers and night watchmen — but, as a rule, it is not the 
 case that those who, having some small private resources, 
 are partly independent of wage earnings, work any the 
 cheaper on that account. The effect is rather to be seen 
 in the kind of work they choose to do. If some have 
 pensions and some not, and labour is unorganised, wages 
 may suffer ; this is often the case with the work of the very 
 poor, subsidised by charity, when low pay is, perhaps, a 
 qualification for the assistance given. Wages would not 
 suffer generally if everyone were on an equal footing as 
 to pension. But then (it is said) there would at least 
 be competition between men just under or just over the 
 pension age, between subsidised men of 65 or 66 and un- 
 subsidised men of 63 or 64. I cannot deny that this might 
 be the case, but I do not see why the effect of such com- 
 petition should be different from that of the competition 
 which arises to-day between men who have and men who 
 have not secured some little provision by savings, and fear 
 is never expressed on this score as to the results of 
 individual saving. 
 
 As to the effect on wages generally, it may be true
 
 PROPOSALS. 41 
 
 that where employment carries the right of a pension the 
 current wages are in some cases lower. When this is so it 
 is partly due to the pension being accepted as deferred wages, 
 bat also to the certainty and regularity of earnings which 
 result when the ens;ag , ement is of a character to include the 
 promise of a pension ; and the effect produced on the rate 
 of wages is shown in comparison and in competition with 
 employments offering no such security. If the pension 
 privilege were common to all, there is, I think, no reason 
 to suppose that any effect on wages would be noticeable. 
 The social adjustment involved would include a great many 
 other considerations. The relations between employer 
 and employed, and producer and consumer, would be 
 regulated without more regard to this than to any other 
 form of public expenditure. 
 
 In consequence of the high pressure of modern industry, 
 men are thrown out of their regular employment earlier than 
 formerly while they are yet quite capable of doing useful 
 service. To find some suitable employment for them will be 
 an industrial problem of the future ; and to have a little 
 money in hand or the prospect of a small weekly allowance 
 at a certain age, will assuredly not lessen their chances. 
 What men need in such cases is breathing time and hope. 
 
 With regard to assistance from children I do not suppose 
 that under an endowment scheme quite as much will be 
 contributed by children as is now, in some cases, drawn 
 from them for the support of indigent parents. What I 
 claim is, that these contributions are now often pressed too 
 far, both by custom, on the willing, and by law, on the 
 unwilling. That, in fact, the burthen (which must be 
 borne in some fashion) would be better borne if more 
 widely distributed. But in one way more, rather than less, 
 would be done ; for now, while a great struggle may be 
 made to keep the old people out of the house, if once that 
 effort is abandoned, voluntary contributions cease. A
 
 42 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 small pension would give in this, as in every other direction, 
 fresh courage. Many an old person with 5s, or even less than 
 5s a week, would be a possible and welcome guest in the 
 younger home. Or if the larger hope I entertain is 
 fulfilled and the old people, adding savings to pensions, are 
 able to maintain their own home, there will still be much 
 that the young can and surely will do for them ; and none 
 the less if it be balanced by what the old people will gladly 
 do for their children. In either case the mutual relations 
 would be better and happier than they now are. 
 
 It may be noted that in England the relations between 
 parents and children, comparing rich and poor, are 
 absolutely reversed. Among the upper classes of the 
 rich, children look absolutely to their parents for support, 
 not only, as with the middle class, during the whole 
 period of a prolonged education, but onwards throughout 
 life, till at the death of their parents the juniors of one 
 generation become the elders of the next. And on this 
 is built up an amazingly complicated system of settlements. 
 With the upper middle class the system is not carried 
 so far ; especially with the sons, who after receiving a good 
 start in life are expected to fend for themselves; but still 
 the inheritance of a patrimony is looked forward to as the 
 ordinary culmination. It is in our huge and ever growing 
 lower middle class that is found the mixed system under 
 which there are reciprocal benefits. With them the young 
 people commonly look totheirelders forassistance — although, 
 if prosperous, they may become the pillars of the family. 
 It is with the poor alone that all the favours come from the 
 young, the old having to look to their descendants to save 
 them from starvation or the parish, while the young have to 
 weigh the claims of parents against those of wives and children 
 
 As to charity as a source of maintenance, I should 
 be very glad if I could obtain for my proposals the support 
 of those who take an interest in the regulation of
 
 PROPOSALS. 43 
 
 charitable giving. The cases of the old who ask relief 
 present almost always the difficulties associated with the 
 word ' ' chronic," and all these difficulties would be greatly 
 mitigated by a small allowance coming in at a certain age. 
 Assistance that might otherwise be quite impracticable 
 would become possible or even easy. Hope again exercises 
 her magic influence. And if the conduct of any particular 
 old person be such as to make it impossible to assist him, 
 he will be relegated without hesitation to the workhouse, 
 carrying thither his pension. 
 
 I do not know that less would be given in charity than is 
 given now, but I think it would be more wisely given, and 
 that none but those whose cases were hopeless, either from 
 infirmity of body or mind, or from habitual misconduct, need 
 fail to secure a comfortable and respectable maintenance in 
 old age, independent of the Poor Law. In a word, as 
 regards the old, begging would become less fraudulent 
 and charity more effective. 
 
 The part that the Poor Law would play in connection 
 with a complete system of State pensions depends so much 
 on the details of the scheme and its administration, that 
 I propose to leave that question until these have been 
 considered. My proposals do not stop short of the entire 
 abolition of systematic out-relief. 
 
 Such, soberly stated, are the virtues of this scheme. The 
 argument on which in principle it rests, stands untouched 
 by criticism. But that there are some objections and serious 
 practical difficulties to be surmounted I do not deny. With 
 the idea of showing both what they are and how they may 
 be met and overcome, I now venture into details.
 
 44 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 (2) The Scheme and its Cost. 
 
 The plan usually associated with the foregoing argument 
 is the granting of a pension of 5s a week to all who, being 
 English born and having lived their working lives in the 
 United Kingdom, reach the age of 65 ; it also contains 
 some not exactly defined provision for otherwise treating 
 chronic paupers and criminals, This proposal was not my 
 invention, but I have argued in its favour, and it has served 
 its purpose as a basis of discussion. 
 
 It has always been certain that even if the principle were 
 completely accepted, and if it were agreed that action 
 should be taken, the final shape of the measure would still 
 remain to be determined and would involve some give and 
 take between opposing interests or views. If action on 
 this principle had been urged by either Commission, and if 
 the Government of the day had adopted the same view, it 
 would have been for those in office to lay down the lines of 
 a practical scheme in accordance with the amount of money 
 they were prepared to ask Parliament to provide. 
 
 This, however, is what has not happened. The Eoyal 
 Commission presided over by Lord Aberdare could agree 
 only that there was a case for consideration, and suggested 
 the appointment of a differently constituted body to carry 
 the matter further. The Committee presided over by Lord 
 Rothschild confirmed the view that the present state of the 
 aged poor was deplorable, but under the limitations of their 
 reference could find no cure ; and they glanced at proposals 
 such as mine, which they accounted as outside their 
 reference, only to pronounce them financially impossible. 
 I do not think that either the Royal Commission or the 
 Committee condemned the plan of general endowment in 
 principle. On the contrary, they sweetened their rejection 
 of this scheme with kind and even complimentary phrases 
 as to its logical perfection. But at the same time they no 
 doubt regarded any such proposal as quite out of the range 
 of practical politics.
 
 PROPOSALS. 45 
 
 It is, however, not too much to say that while the demand 
 for pensions remains in full strength, it is the non-contri- 
 butory schemes that now hold the field. The stones which 
 the builders rejected bid fair to become the corner stones 
 of the new building if there is to be any building at all. 
 It is thus incumbent upon those who advocate my principles 
 to show how they might be put in practice, and what now 
 follows is intended as an effort in this direction. 
 
 The most desirable age for a State pension is put by 
 various authorities at 60, 65, 70, and 75. If we consider 
 solely the usual working powers of men, 60 is now late 
 enough in most manual industries, but some employments 
 press less hardly, and in most cases the industrial break- 
 down precedes the financial breakdown by several years, so 
 that we find 65 to be the age at which pauperism increases 
 by leaps and bounds, and thus this age has been commonly 
 chosen as representing the time "when strength is gone 
 and money spent and — pensions — are most excellent." But 
 nevertheless, for reasons which I shall by-and-by give, the 
 age of 70 is the basis of my scheme. 
 
 It would be provided that every one should, on attaining 
 70 years of age, be entitled to a pension of 7s a week for 
 the remainder of life. Aliens would be excluded, and 
 there are no doubt other exceptions to be made, but 
 with these details it is unnecessary to burthen my present 
 statement. 
 
 The decision as to whether the applicant was entitled 
 should, I think, rest with the Registrars, Superintendent- 
 Registrars, and finally, in case of need, with the Registrar- 
 General, unless a special officer were appointed in connection 
 with the Local Government Board for this and other 
 purposes connected with pension administration. 
 
 At the onset there would be a great rush of application-, 
 but when this was over the numbers coming forward mouth 
 by month would be very easily dealt with by the Ilcgistrars.
 
 46 THE AGED POOB. 
 
 Anyone claiming to be 70 years of age could obtain 
 from the Registrar (of Births, Marriages, and Deaths) of the 
 District in which he lived a form of application, not unlike 
 those used by scientific societies to set forth the names 
 and claims of those seeking election. This form would be 
 filled up by or for the applicant with the best available 
 evidence as to probable age, and attested by those able 
 to certify the credibility of the statements made. The 
 applicant should then, I suggest, appear in person before 
 the Registrar to answer such questions as may be requisite 
 in support of the claim, the answers being duly recorded. 
 If the Registrar should doubt the validity of the claim, it 
 would be his duty to communicate with those who have 
 supported it by their signatures, and make any necessary 
 inquiries, so that the case to be laid before the Superin- 
 tendent-Registrar should be as complete as possible. 
 
 Although legal proof of ;ige might be difficult to obtain, 
 it would be increasingly possible to find confirmatory 
 evidence by reference to insurance policies, Friendly 
 Societies' books, marriage registers, and even school lists ; 
 besides certificates of birth or baptism, and the evidence 
 of family bibles."* All Insurance companies, including 
 the Post Office, are obliged at times to make the best of 
 imperfect evidence as to age, and, though the greater age 
 of the pension applicants makes the difficulties greater and 
 the results less absolutely certain, I do not think these 
 difficulties are very serious. The proportion of doubtful 
 cases would decrease and it will be enough if in those 
 cases substantial justice is done. Although it is possible 
 that kindness might occasionally prevail over justice, we need 
 not on the whole be afraid of undue laxity, but may rather 
 
 * I found occasion to ask two old women whether they could prove their 
 age. The one, a housekeeper of 65, produced a family Eible, yellow with lapse 
 of years ; the other, an itinerant vendor of 78, said her mother had told her 
 she was born in the same year and month as a certain lady of the neighbour- 
 hood — also still living — and she took her age from this lady.
 
 PROPOSALS. 47 
 
 assume that any tendency to exaggeration on the part of the 
 applicants would be counterbalanced by official scepticism. 
 
 The preliminaries being completed, the Registrar would 
 forward the application, with his report thereon and any 
 accompanying documents, to his Superintendent, who 
 would fix a time to see the applicant ; in order, by cross- 
 examination, to further test and verify the statements 
 made, and the Superintendent would, thereupon, to 
 the best of his ability, decide what, for the purposes 
 of the Pension Act, should be accepted as the age of 
 the applicant. He would also levy the fees for his 
 own and the Registrai^s action, either collecting them 
 in cash or allowing them to be deducted from the 
 first pension payments. Should the applicant be dis- 
 satisfied with the Superintendent-Registrar's decision, there 
 might be an appeal to the Registrar-General or other 
 Pension Authority. All fees should be as small as is 
 consistent with due remuneration of the officers employed. 
 
 If it is admitted that the applicant is 70 years of age, or 
 so soon as the period is reached at which he is entitled to 
 a pension, the claim will be endorsed by the Treasury, and 
 payment of the pension authorised to be made from the 
 nearest Money Order Office, as Army and Navy Pensioners 
 are paid now\ The pensioner would be provided with a 
 certificate of identity and a pension book (to last for years) 
 which would be post-marked at the proper space for each 
 payment, a duplicate form being similarly marked at the 
 office of payment. 
 
 It will be desirable that the pensions should be drawn 
 weekly, on a certain day and hour, but it might be a 
 different day for men and women ; and be payable to the 
 pensioners personally, and in no other way, except in 
 cases of certified infirmity, when some relation or friend 
 would be authorised to collect. Some other more temporary 
 exceptions may also be requisite, but the need for this rule 
 lies in the risk there might be of duplicate claims; one
 
 48 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 person fraudulently succeeding in obtaining pensions in 
 different localities under different names. This is not an 
 altogether fanciful danger, especially in large cities. I do 
 not think the weekly collection of the money would be 
 felt as any hardship by those who have all their lives been 
 accustomed to this method of finance, and the fact that 
 it would not particularly suit the well-to-do is an incident 
 of which I do not object to take advantage, if it will to 
 some extent obviate the objections most commonly raised 
 to any scheme of general pensions, viz., the great cost and the 
 wastefulness of giving to those who do not need them. 
 
 I should have hesitated to take this line solely with this 
 object, offering to the middle and upper classes a delusive 
 share in the benefit for which on any scheme of taxation they 
 would largely pay, inviting them to a feast like that offered 
 by the fox to the crane and the crane to the fox in ^Esop's 
 fable; but the system of weekly payments is that which 
 suits two out of three of our old people and all of those 
 whose condition we are concerned to improve, is the best 
 safeguard against duplication, and lends itself to economy 
 of administration. On this plan all can participate if they 
 choose, and certainly all who need this addition to other 
 income will not fail to claim it. 
 
 The pensioners in each district would be under the 
 superintendence of the Registrar. When they died the fact 
 would necessarily come to his knowledge and would be 
 reported by him. 
 
 The plan here suggested would, I think, work easily 
 and economically. To meet cases of temporary disablement 
 by illness it might be desirable that a doctor should be 
 employed in each district to give certificates when needed. 
 He would share with the Registrar the necessary superin- 
 tendence of the pensioners, and his certificate would imply 
 that they were not absent from home but only confined to 
 the house. In country places where the distances are 
 great some relaxation of the rules would be needed — but
 
 PROPOSALS. 49 
 
 the principle of personal payment would be maintained as 
 far as possible. Amongst other advantages this plan 
 provides automatically for the suspension of payment if 
 a pensioner should be in prison or even in hospital. The 
 pension could never accumulate. The fact that this 
 arrangement, "while it would facilitate administration and 
 not be inconvenient, but perhaps rather the reverse, to the 
 mass of the people, would hardly suit the habits and ideas 
 of the well-to-do, has been relied on in the estimates of 
 cost that follow. 
 
 But before passing from the method of administration to 
 the cost of the scheme, I should wish to refer to its 
 influence on pauperism. It is an integral part of my plan 
 that, concurrently with the establishment of pensions in 
 old age, out-relief under the Poor Law should be abolished, 
 (except, perhaps, for a limited period in widowhood or other 
 cases of sudden calamity). The disadvantages and dangers 
 of a hybrid system of combined pensions and pauperism 
 would be serious, and must be avoided. But to abolish 
 out-relief without causing hardship will be a task of 
 some difficulty, especially for the early years of old 
 age. All those who look forward to receiving their 
 pension at 70 would be able to secure it at an earlier age 
 by payment of the extra cost involved, and action of this 
 kind would be facilitated through the Post Office. Many 
 poor cases, however, will remain, especially in regard to 
 the poverty of to-day, which might seem mocked by the 
 offer of assistance at 70, and whose needs might be suffi- 
 ciently met with something less than 7s a week — the cases 
 of those who, without present help, must inevitably become 
 paupers, but who might still retain their independence if 
 permitted to discount their pension expectation. To meet 
 needs of this kind, I think it might be desirable in some 
 cases to grant pensions, reduced in amount, proportionately 
 to the age at which payment begins. 
 
 4
 
 50 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 The conditions on which such exceptional treatment 
 might be accorded, would be equality of cost to the State, 
 coupled with some practical security for the independence 
 of the recipient. From 60 to 70 is usually the time of 
 danger, when for many of the poor, the workhouse begins 
 to loom in the distance. The cost to the State of an 
 annuity of 2s Gel a week from 00, or 4s from 65, or 7s 
 from 70, is approximately the same. Before the age of GO 
 I should not grant this facility. 
 
 My suggestion is, that any persons who have reached 
 60 years of age, and whose means are diminishing so that 
 they are in evident danger of having sooner or later to seek 
 relief, should be entitled to lay their case before the 
 guardians of their parish, whose interest in the matter is 
 evident. The Guardians, if they are themselves satisfied on 
 the subject, would report the case as suitable for special 
 treatment. No case should be recommended by them nor 
 would be accepted by the Pension Authority unless need 
 were shown for this concession, nor unless an income could 
 be assured which, with the reduced pension, might be 
 expected to suffice for the maintenance of a decent existence. 
 The supplementary provision would be most satisfactor} r 
 if it took the shape of a sum of money paid into the Post 
 Office which would serve to raise the reduced pension to 
 a minimum of 5s or whatever sum might be considered 
 requisite to maintain independence. I do not wish to suggest 
 any hard and fast fixed rule as to method or amount ; some 
 elasticity would be desirable. The plan thus varied would 
 lend itself to different circumstances so as to obtain the 
 utmost possible advantage out of the money expended. 
 The object is to prevent pauperism by catching the poor 
 on the downward grade before they have dissipated every- 
 thing ; acting exactly in the opposite way from out-relief, 
 which insists upon the dissipation of savings before anything 
 can be done. 
 
 Any existing out-paupers who are over 70 I would allow
 
 PROPOSALS. 51 
 
 to claim their pensions, and those whose age lies between 
 60 and 70 might put forward, through the Guardians, 
 their claims for an anticipated pension of reduced amount, 
 according to their age, and these claims would be admitted 
 provided that the applicants found the means to raise the 
 amount of pension to a sufficiency. The only alternative 
 would be indoor relief, but I cannot doubt that in most, if 
 not all cases, the required amount would be secured. 
 Towards this object existing charitable funds might very 
 properly be applied. 
 
 The effect of this system on the lives of the poor and 
 on pauperism is seen better when we consider, not the 
 existing body of paupers, whether indoor or out, but the 
 people from whose ranks, year by year, paupers are drawn. 
 To them it offers the hope of avoiding parish relief and, in 
 this direction, gives a special value to such savings as they 
 have made. To those who befriend them it provides an 
 opportunity of lending permanent assistance, and to the 
 Guardians it presents a chance of avoiding ultimate 
 chargeability on the rates. These forces would all pull 
 together instead of being as at present mutually exclusive 
 — savings to be exhausted before poor relief can be 
 claimed, and friendly help too often called forth only by 
 the actual presence of distress. 
 
 Indoor paupers of suitable age would be free to leave the 
 workhouse and claim their pension, but could not claim it 
 while resident there. If they remain in, or if after leaving 
 they should return to the workhouse, their pension would 
 pass to the Guardians in compensation for their keep. 
 They could not be pensioners and paupers alternately. 
 The same rule would apply to any one who, having acquired 
 a pension, might be obliged after all to apply to the 
 Guardians for relief. He must then enter the workhouse 
 and the Guardians would receive his pension. 
 
 The money received by the Guardians on account of 
 the old persons in their charge would lighten the pressure 
 
 4 *
 
 52 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 on the rates and justify very special treatment for the 
 infirm, and would lead, I should hope, to a complete 
 classification of the inmates and to the appropriation of 
 special buildings to special needs. If this did not reduce 
 expenditure on the indoor poor generally, as I confidently 
 hope it might, it would at least give much better value for 
 the amount expended than is now obtained. 
 
 If we take the census of 1891 as our basis we obtain the 
 figures of cost given in the table opposite. 
 
 These figures show how closely the sum needed to pro- 
 vide 7s a week for all over 70 years of age compares with 
 4s for all over 65, or 2s 6d for all over 60. In what 
 follows I make no distinction between England, on the one 
 hand, and Scotland and Ireland on the other, as I do not 
 &ee how in justice any such distinction could be made, any 
 more than between urban and rural districts in England, 
 although some difficulties are thereby involved.
 
 PROPOSALS. 
 
 53 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 Q 
 
 -^ 
 
 
 O 
 
 <u 
 
 
 V. 
 
 £ 
 
 »C re 
 
 
 
 >-~ co 
 
 
 <x> 
 
 Ol (M 
 
 Q 
 
 ft 
 
 X X 
 
 OS CO 
 
 fc) 
 
 
 •"* SO 
 
 — 
 
 © 
 
 
 K 
 
 o 
 
 • g 
 
 P 
 
 c~ 
 
 • CO 
 
 d> 
 
 CO ,-H 
 
 <* 
 
 >o o 
 
 CO tH 
 X o 
 
 ® 
 
 ■z <u,y 
 
 «rt 
 
 «rt 
 
 ft 
 
 Ol 00 
 .-1 Ol 
 
 o 
 
 «« 
 
 ts 
 
 OS M 
 
 01 
 
 
 
 «d 
 
 -* 
 
 
 
 CO Ol 
 
 UO 
 
 
 C4 
 
 CO o 
 
 O 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 @ 
 
 7-1 1-1 
 
 Ol 
 
 o f 
 
 
 : a 
 
 
 3 > 
 
 
 
 ,_; 
 
 ^° 
 
 
 
 c3 
 
 
 6 
 
 5 o 
 
 o 
 
 1* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 H5 
 
 ,- » 
 
 
 
 CO 
 
 2-° 
 
 
 
 
 1:3 ~ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ® 
 
 @ 
 
 © 
 
 CO t- 
 OiiH 
 
 CO >ra 
 01 Ol 
 
 ,3 & 
 
 .2 a 
 
 O S|5 
 
 .2^2 
 
 c3 ^o 
 P 5 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 fc 
 
 o> 
 
 
 -f| 
 
 
 w o 
 
 J 
 
 S-c 
 
 Ol L~ 
 
 Ol -^ 
 
 H 
 O 
 
 a 
 
 — — 
 
 
 ■># t> 
 
 O 
 
 r> 
 
 
 02 
 
 ® 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 • r; 
 
 
 L^ 
 
 • CO 
 
 
 s 
 
 go 
 
 S^ 
 
 8 &g $ Eg 
 
 ®o 
 o : s 
 
 ® 
 
 ~^ 
 
 o ■- ~ 
 
 @ 
 
 
 ® 
 
 o o 
 
 SO 
 
 §.2 
 
 Ol Ol 
 
 "* 
 
 
 US T-l 
 
 to | 
 
 . f 
 
 Ol T(( 
 
 o~ 1 
 
 «2 =? 
 
 :- / 
 
 
 -,,H 
 
 
 ^ SO 
 
 : c 
 
 
 ci CO 
 
 • <D 
 
 
 
 c 2 
 
 c3 
 
 c o 
 
 S S> 
 
 o-i •=> .n 
 
 o 
 >o 
 
 S 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 cu — 
 
 l> 
 
 T»< 
 
 CN 
 
 ^ s 
 
 o 
 
 
 -& 
 
 1) <& 
 
 co" 
 
 
 o> 
 
 
 O ^ 
 
 M 
 
 * o 
 
 «rt 
 
 & 
 
 
 t* a„ 
 
 
 -^ o 
 
 Ol 
 
 O . N CS 
 
 pH 
 
 
 o 
 
 £, ' >.o Ol 
 
 S - ° 
 
 00 
 
 t»->^ 
 
 eo 
 
 -* 
 
 S rt 
 
 of 
 
 75 . eo oi 
 
 uoT 
 
 t~ 
 
 - CO 50 rjD 
 
 — 
 
 ^3 
 
 co 
 
 & v r " Z; 
 
 ©o 
 
 Ol 
 
 m o> 
 
 - 
 
 o : a 
 
 
 k-.-O 
 
 ,_• 
 
 O • 
 
 ,_: 
 
 "< i 
 
 cS 
 
 SJ o ^ 
 
 CS 
 
 o 
 
 "o 
 
 "o 
 
 s 
 
 H 
 
 ^^ 
 
 H 
 
 0)
 
 ,~>i THE AGED POOR. 
 
 While seven shillings at 70 for both men and women 
 would be, perhaps, the more generous and better basis, 
 there is something to be said for a difference being made 
 between the sexes. The case of the women, though more 
 pressing, is also more easily satisfied. They neither break 
 down so soon nor so completely. They are able to do 
 more for themselves and for others than old men. A 
 smaller measure of assistance will suffice. The endowment 
 for women might, therefore, be put at 5s in place of 7s.* 
 Moreover, 12s a week would undoubtedly be enough 
 assistance for a married couple. 
 
 The cost of an endowment of 498,255 old men at £18. As 
 per annum would be £9,068,241, and of 638,233 old women at 
 £13 per annum would be £8,297,029, or together £17,365,2 70, 
 or if we allow for the increase in the numbers of the old since 
 1891, we may say about £19,000,000 for the year 1900. 
 
 From this sum a deduction has to be made to represent 
 the extent to which pensions would not be claimed by the 
 well-to-do. Here I tread on very doubtful ground. It is 
 impossible to be sure what course would be pursued — what 
 view taken. At the age of three score years and ten a pen- 
 sion of 5s or 7s a week, to be drawn at the nearest Post Office 
 at a fixed time in company with all the other old men and 
 Avomen of the district — under regulations somewhat similar 
 to those which prevail in the payment of wages at a factory, 
 would, perhaps, not be hailed as a very great advantage. 
 Some of the richer classes might try it, but many would 
 not think it worth while to go before the registrar to prove 
 their claim. It might finally become largely a matter of 
 fashion whether it were done or not. 
 
 My estimate of the deduction to be made on this score is 
 fully 15 per cent, (or say £3,000,000 out of £19,000,000). 
 But in basing any action upon this estimate, there is, 
 beyond its inherent uncertainty, a further danger which 
 cannot be ignored : viz., that a very slight relaxation in 
 * Pensions of 5s at 70 are about equal to 3s at 65 ov Is dd at 60.
 
 PROPOSALS. 55 
 
 tlie rules niight affect the result considerably. The 
 conditions of payment have only to be altered a little and 
 almost everyone would be ready to make their claim and 
 collect their money. If the very slight barrier which, this 
 scheme provides were broken down in favour of the rich, 
 or if such changes were to be made in accordance with the 
 wishes of the pensioners generally, then it might well be that 
 the unused pensions would fall to one-twentieth or less. 
 
 Whatever the amount required might be — whether the 
 £16,000,000 of my estimate or a larger sum — there would 
 be on the other side of the account a very considerable 
 saving in the existing charges for poor relief; the saving 
 of practically the whole present charge on the rates for the 
 maintenance of the old, with the possibilities of further 
 savings and a better return for expenditure if the work- 
 house system were thoroughly re-organised as it might be.*" 
 
 These advantages to the ratepayer would justify the 
 throwing of a full share of the new burthen on the rates, 
 and this possibility could be taken into consideration in 
 any revision of the relations between imperial and local 
 taxation. t 
 
 * Over £2,500,000 is expended annually on out-relief in England and 
 Wales alone. 
 
 f The granting of reduced pensions at an earlier age— though not 
 involving any increase of charge lu I lie State in the Long inn, would involve 
 a larger payment during the first years. It is, perhaps, not likely that this 
 would be a very great matter, and it would be offset to some extent by cash 
 received from those whose pensions were antedated;
 
 50 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 Objections and Difficulties. 
 
 The objections to be considered come from all sides. 
 Some of my critics would do more than I venture to suggest 
 and some would do nothing ; and others desire to do some- 
 thing quite different. I cannot be sure how the details of the 
 plan I have proposed will strike any of these. I may find that 
 I have conciliated some who have been hostile, and perhaps 
 estranged others who have been my friends. Many may 
 remain unconvinced, while to others I may hope to have 
 opened the way. In what follows I shall begin with 
 questions of principle and go on to points of detail. 
 
 (1) It is asserted that as a cure for pauperism pensions 
 are futile, as they only create a new and additional form of 
 pauperism. This objection rests on a conception of 
 pauperism which ignores the essential characteristic of 
 pauper relief — that it is a benefit granted to the destitute 
 because of their destitution. It is this selection, with its 
 forms of application and the inquiries it involves, that 
 brings loss of independence and of dignity and a feeling of 
 disgrace. Herein lies the stigma of pauperism. Benefits 
 which all may enjoy carry with them no slur. Educational 
 endowments as enjoyed by the rich, free elementary 
 education as bestowed upon the poorer classes, the facilities 
 offered by free libraries, &c. — are cases in point. Pensions 
 open to all and paid for out of taxation would have nothing 
 either morally or economically in common with pauperism. 
 
 (2) It is said that it is absurd not to discriminate between 
 those who need and those who do not need pensions. It is 
 precisely this view of pensions and of the poor, which if 
 accepted would throw us back on objection number one. 
 It is to protect the dignity of the pensions, and in order 
 that no possible taint of pauperism should attach to 
 them, that I insist on their being open to all classes. 
 Their social effect would go far beyond the relief of 
 distress. They would prove to be a valuable factor in the
 
 PROPOSALS. 57 
 
 family life of more than half the population ; stimulating 
 personal effort and raising the whole standard of life. If 
 I have accepted a dividing line between those who arc, 
 and those who are not, willing to collect the money them- 
 selves every week, it is because this seems to me better 
 than any limitation by income, but I am conscious that 
 it may be objected to as a sacrifice of principle. I put 
 it forward as a practical solution. It is, I think, better 
 than refusing the pension to payers of income tax. The 
 numerical results might not be very different. I do not 
 wish to say that the dignity of the pensioners would be 
 seriously affected by the exclusion of the old who pay 
 income tax, but the line would be hard and rather arbitrary. 
 On the plan I have put forward the question would settle 
 itself. There would be no grievance. Other advocates of 
 pensions take much lower ground, and would refuse a 
 pension to anyone whose income amounted to over 10s, 
 but to do this would be to reduce the pension standard 
 irretrievably, and would surely have the effect of dis- 
 couraging any savings in excess of the admitted amount. 
 A feeling of injustice would be raised or, worse still, an 
 encouragement given to fraudulent representations, and 
 a very objectionable inquisition into the actual means of 
 applicants would become necessary. The difficulties in the 
 way of such an inquiry, both as to principle and as to practice, 
 would be insuperable. For instance : Would the transfer 
 of property to children, in order to qualify for a pension, 
 be disallowed, and if so, how could it be prevented ? Are 
 earnings, which are necessarily precarious, to be considered 
 in the same light as an income from property ? Would not 
 men cease to work in order to qualify, and if they did, by 
 what system of espionage could the resumption of work be 
 prevented ? Are necessary claims upon income not to be 
 considered in estimating the degree of poverty which 
 would justify the payment of a pension ? In truth, the 
 proposal is beset with difficulties, and in the shape it
 
 58 THE AC Eh POOR. 
 
 usually takes — that of an income limit of 10s — is absolutely 
 impracticable. 
 
 (3) It is thought wrong that the undeserving, and 
 altogether impolitic that those who have done nothing to 
 help themselves, should benefit equally with the thrifty 
 and deserving. But discrimination in favour of the 
 deserving as a basis of assistance is not less dangerous 
 than that in favour of the needy. To the taint of pauper- 
 ism this principle only adds the flavour of charity. It 
 is even more subtly dangerous to base the claim for 
 consideration upon inquiry into character than into means. 
 Dignity of character would suffer more. To whom could 
 such an inquiry be intrusted ? By whom, except the 
 most debased, would it not be resented ? 
 
 Who, after all, are "the deserving" ? It is very com- 
 monly said that of those who seek poor relief under the 
 present law few can be so accounted. But it is to be 
 remembered that the tests applied are mainly concerned 
 with economic worth. These tests are a continuation of 
 the natural discrimination which has brought some to the 
 bar of inquiry while lifting others beyond any need of 
 relief. Not to have applied till old age affords probability 
 of " desert," not to have applied at all, full proof, but the 
 proof or probability directly concerns economic, and only 
 indirectly moral, character. Those who fail to pass these 
 economic tests are apt to be regarded as undeserving in a 
 wider sense. They often are so ; but which of us is pre- 
 pared to throw the first stone ? Many a man is altogether 
 morally undeserving who yet never comes to poverty, 
 although he may have depended all his life on his own 
 exertions. A bad son or a bad father may work hard and 
 maintain his club subscription, and if poor enough to be so 
 regarded, would pass muster as "deserving" according to 
 the usual tests. On the other hand, a shiftless, thriftless 
 fellow may have all the non-economic virtues, and often 
 does have many of them,
 
 PROPOSALS. 39 
 
 Beyond this I maintain, and I think I have shown, that 
 no more useful assistance could be given to those who are 
 inclined to help themselves than a small fixed provision in 
 old age. 
 
 (4) It is objected that as a cure for poverty the sum to 
 be granted is inadequate, and therefore cruel and calculated 
 only to stimulate begging. The charge of cruelty is the 
 same as that raised against out-relief. It is put forward 
 by the same authorities and with the same rather mixed 
 motives. In the case of pensions, which, as a fixed order 
 of things, would be built into the economic structure of 
 every life, the charge has still less validity than with 
 out-relief, which depends on the will of the guardians and 
 on an uncertain measure of destitution. But that the 
 proposed pension is inadequate in the sense of not in itself 
 providing a sufficient maintenance, I fully admit. To 
 make it adequate would be an error in social tactics, and 
 the weakest points in this scheme are the few cases in 
 which the pension income would be accepted as sufficient 
 for all wants. I trust that a rising standard of life may 
 gradually cover these blots. 
 
 (5) It is also objected that the proposals lack finality, 
 and that the assumption by the State of responsibility for 
 the maintenance of the old would be dangerous. 
 
 This complaint is a continuation of the argument as to 
 inadequacy. An inadequate pension — too small in amount 
 or too late in application — will be made, we are told, the 
 basis for greater and greater demands. The idea that 
 private efforts will be stimulated, in the direction of 
 insurance and savings, by the prospect of an inadequate 
 allowance, is held to be delusive. On the contrary, all the 
 efforts of the inadequately provided for will be turned (it is 
 said) towards increasing or hasteningthe allowance granted, 
 We shall have set forth on a slippery road leading to 
 ruin. This is a serious argument; but those who put it 
 forward are precisely those who also say that the rather
 
 00 THE AGED POOB. 
 
 largo sum required for this inadequate system is an 
 impossibility in finance. With this latter objection I have 
 yet to deal; but, meanwhile, what is it that is meant ? 
 If to raise a revenue of twenty or thirty millions would 
 " cripple our resources/' whence could come the untold 
 sums needed for further and (so-called) adequate extensions? 
 I do not doubt that more will be asked than the utmost 
 
 1 have ventured to propose. More is asked already; and, 
 perhaps, more might be wisely granted. But it will be 
 found that there is a limit, soon reached, beyond which it 
 will not be to the interest of any class to go. This, of 
 pensions, is far less a class question than is supposed. 
 It is no more likely that any section of the population 
 can evade their share of the cost than it is that they will 
 not, either indirectly or directly, reap the benefits, seeing 
 that financially and economically we undoubtedly are 
 " members one of another." 
 
 This is not the only, and it is far from being the most 
 alluring, proposal of democratic expenditure or finance. 
 We are in no great danger from such proposals. If they 
 had been socially or economically possible the world would 
 not have waited till now for their realisation. They are 
 dreams of young men, from which they usually awaken ; 
 high hopes, it may be, which our human nature is too 
 faulty and self-seeking to realise. As regards pensions in 
 old age, at any rate, we have here no slippery road leading 
 to destruction, but rather a path strewn with obstacles 
 wdiich, while they block the way even of the most modest 
 proposals, increase with every extension that is suggested. 
 Difficulties as to the age limit, non-existent at 75 or 70, show 
 themselves already at 65, and at 60 or 55 would be found to 
 be insuperable. Dangers springing from the amount of 
 pension, which fade out of sight when the figure is reduced 
 to 4s or 5s, are patent if 10s or 15s is talked of. Twenty 
 millions is not financially impossible, but how about forty or 
 sixty millions to be used for this purpose alone ? Thus the
 
 PROPOSALS. 61 
 
 bounds are firmly set. The difficulty is to do anything". 
 There does not seem to be any serious danger of our doing 
 too much. It is not of malice prepense that two very 
 painstaking Royal Commissions have found no way 
 through the difficulties presented by this subject. Nor is 
 it either ineptness or lack of consideration for the poor, 
 that to-day leaves both the Government and the Opposition 
 without any practical plan. 
 
 The danger of lack of finality applies, however, more 
 particularly to schemes which are based on selection, which 
 do not treat all alike ; and the avoidance of this danger 
 is one of the strongest features of a general system, what- 
 ever be the amount of pension or the age at which it is 
 given. It is thus only so far as there is a possibility of the 
 rich ultimately claiming their full share in the benefit 
 offered that the scheme now put forward incurs this 
 liability. 
 
 The fear that future dangers may result from the 
 assumption by the State of responsibility for the main- 
 tenance of the old is somewhat different. To encourage 
 claims and raise hopes that we could not fulfil would be to 
 increase, not to alleviate misery. This is indeed a good 
 reason for considering carefully what we do — a very good 
 argument for reaching finality — but not I think any excuse 
 for doing nothing. 
 
 In another sense finality cannot be claimed. The old are 
 increasing in numbers every year, and tend now to increase 
 rather faster than the rest of the population; moreover, 
 protected as their old age would be by a pension system, 
 the lives of the old would be lengthened. Thus the 
 burthen (however it is to be borne) will undoubtedly 
 increase. But this again, affords no good reason for inaction. 
 
 (G) We are warned against the dangers of a socialistic 
 transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. That the 
 proposal, so far as it goes, is socialistic, cannot be 
 denied, but this word no longer inspires the terror it
 
 G2 THE AGED POOH. 
 
 once did. We are a practical rather than a logical people, 
 and are finding out that there is nothing in the shapes 
 taken by the socialism of our day different in character 
 from the innumerable attempts .at social regulation 
 recorded in the statute books for hundreds of years past, 
 all of which must be judged according to their merits. It 
 is true that under a general pension scheme in which 
 every one participates, the rich would to a great extent 
 pay for the poor. That is the quite rich for the quite 
 poor, but if we may assume that taxation falls as a 
 whole about in proportion to income, a large proportion 
 — more than half the population — would fairly pay for the 
 benefits their old people received. The inequality of fiscal 
 burthens, the payment by the rich or well-to-do of more in 
 proportion to the advantages obtained than is paid by the 
 poor man is the invariable rule ; but this shocks no 
 one, not even the most sturdy in their independence. I 
 perhaps pay ten times as much in rates or taxes as my 
 baker, and he ten times as much as the journeyman he 
 employs ; a neighbouring millionaire pays perhaps ten 
 times as much as I do ; but there is no sense of inequality 
 on that score. If we all four met on the top of an omnibus, 
 we should feel equally within our right in inveighing 
 against the vestry for not sweeping away the snow, and 
 wondering what they were doing with our money. Still 
 more commonly, we all speak of our soldiers, our sailors, 
 &c, though as individuals, we contribute very unequally 
 to their support. In the imposition of taxes it is the fate 
 of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to please no one, but 
 he is most safe when every one, high and low, feels the 
 pinch of taxation about equally. This fact brings about a 
 kind of justice with which, failing a better, we have to be 
 content, and which is expressed in the phrase, " equality 
 of sacrifice." 
 
 A (7) It is also said, but it is less true, that the hardworking 
 and thrifty of the working classes would pay for the idle and
 
 PROPOSALS. 63 
 
 worthless ; in fact it would only be true when their situation 
 or success in life has raised them above the highest level of 
 artisan life. There is, however, nothing new in the worth) 7 ' 
 paying for the worthless. It is the ordinary rule of life 
 and cannot be altered, unless we steel our hearts entirely 
 against the sufferings of the sick and the weak, as well as' of 
 the idle, the drunken, and the vicious, and leave them to 
 perish unaided; for it is not possible to discriminate. 
 According to the present law they all — whether immoral, 
 drunken, or lazy — all the old menand women now existing — 
 have the right to demand shelter in the workhouse, with 
 fire and food and clothing, and medical care when they are 
 ill, all provided at the expense of the community ; at a 
 cost which certainly exceeds 7s a week. Towards this 
 expense the independent poor contribute largely, but. 
 themselves receive nothing in return. The burthen and 
 benefit of general pensions would be more fairly balanced 
 than this. 
 
 (8) It has been also objected that the young would pay 
 for the old ; but as it is felt that they will in their turn grow 
 old, the form of this objection has been changed and has 
 taken the shape, that those who never reach pension age 
 pay, but receive nothing, however poor they may be. To 
 this the answer is that the burthen of the old falls now 
 mainly on the young or middle aged. A pension system 
 readjusts this burthen against the rich and in favour of the 
 poor, but leaves the relation between young and old practi- 
 cally untouched. The taxes which a young man pays to 
 help support the old of his day justify his claim to like 
 consideration if he live to be old, and if he do not live, ii 
 is in the nature of an insurance — he takes his chance and 
 at least benefits by the knowledge that old age, if it comes, 
 is safeguarded. 
 
 (9) The possible adverse effect of pensions on wages 
 I have already discussed, and need now only point out that 
 whatever might be the case at CO or even 65, the danger
 
 04 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 becomes entirely imaginary at 70. The danger, if there is 
 any, will only occur with regard to those who on my plan 
 may obtain a ' small and early' pension, and is, so far as 
 it goes, a reason against that proposal. I hope, however, 
 presently to show better reasons in its favour. 
 
 (10) As to the sentimental objections that it is the duty 
 of children to support their parents, and of the rich out 
 of their abundance to give to the poor, I can only say that, 
 after all the State can do has been done, there will still be 
 plenty of opportunities for the exercise of these virtues. 
 
 (11) It is, however, said, that the principles of indepen- 
 dence and thrift are assailed by a provision which takes 
 away the stimulus to saving resulting from the prospect 
 of destitution in old age. 
 
 My whole argument in favour of a general endowment 
 has been directed to the point raised by the false assumption 
 that the principle of independence or the practice of thrift 
 would be other than strengthened and stimulated, by 
 the prospect of such a provision in old age as I have 
 proposed. That this objection would be fatal, if it had any 
 real basis, I readily admit, but it has no basis. 
 
 (12) The same erroneous idea is involved in the objection 
 that thrift agencies would suffer and their energies be 
 sapped. This objection, which is true as regards contri- 
 butory schemes, has no force with a plan like that I have 
 put forward. On the contrary, these agencies would 
 become more solvent and more vigorous, and their services 
 be more and more in request. To this development we 
 may confidently look as the natural result of increasing the 
 value and at the same time probably lowering the price of 
 the article they offer to the public. 
 
 (13) I now come to an entirely different class of objec- 
 tion. I have to meet those who, looking at 5s a week as 
 a minimum amount, insist that to be of any use to the 
 working classes, pensions should begin at 60. To increase 
 the amount to 7s is, from their point of view, no compen-
 
 PROPOSALS. 65 
 
 sation for not beginning before 70 ; and, paltry though the 
 sum might be considered, they would probably prefer 
 As a week at 65, or even 2s 6d at 60, to the larger amount 
 at 70. Against the proposal of 5s a week at 60, the 
 primary obstacle is the enormous cost — double that of what 
 I have proposed, thirty-eight or forty millions gross, or 
 more than thirty millions if the well-to-do classes are 
 by some means excluded. It is probable that if this 
 basis of age were accepted, an effort would be made 
 to cut down the cost by excluding all who had more 
 than as or 10-s- a week from other sources; but to do 
 this would go far to turn pensions into poor relief, and 
 would bring in hosts of evils, as well as greatly complicate 
 the work of administration and increase the cost. At 65 the 
 obstacles are not so serious. The original proposal of 5s at 
 65 is quite tenable, but it will be found that difficulties of 
 every kind are less the higher the age taken. Insuperable 
 as I conceive them to be at 60, they become manageable at 
 65, and pass almost out of existence at 70. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that those who do not reach 
 the pension age would receive no benefit ; for the certainty 
 of a small future income will free the energies of men to 
 provide for the earlier years of old age, and so permit of 
 their enjoyment. No man can wisely count on not 
 surviving, and actuarial calculations must always allow for 
 the proportion who do live into old age. The contribution 
 of the State by way of old age pensions will not be the less 
 valuable to the average individual because it assumes this 
 ultimate rather than any earlier liability. 
 
 In this way the contribution of each — the State and the 
 individual — attain their highest possible value. That of 
 the State by being concentrated on the years when the 
 risk of chargeability to the Poor Law is greatest. That of 
 the individual by its concentration upon those earlier years 
 the needs of which he readily apprehends, and which he will 
 most likely live to experience. And each party gains 
 
 5
 
 66 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 indirectly ; the individual as a ratepayer by the diminution 
 of pauperism — the State by the increase in national 
 prosperity which will surely follow from the efforts called 
 forth. 
 
 Bat then, I may be asked, if 70 is the age which 
 provides the most perfect adjustment, why admit any 
 exceptions ? 
 
 My argument is this. If we are to secure the moral 
 results for which I look, and without which a pension 
 system would be of little value, out-relief must be abolished. 
 The original proposal of 5s at 65 carried with it in my 
 mind a proviso that no one should be granted an inde- 
 pendent pension who had received poor relief during the 
 preceding five or ten years. It was a clumsy device, 
 but the aim was, by a gradual pressure, to bring about 
 the abolition of out-relief. With 70 as the pension age, 
 this plan would not work, and there is no practical course 
 short of the entire abolition of out-relief for the old. To 
 carry this out successfully, we need some system which 
 shall put a premium on private effort of every kind. This 
 premium may, I think, be found by allowing those who are 
 in danger of drifting into pauperism to forestall the pension 
 before their resources were exhausted. These early 
 pensioners would not be paupers — they would dip no 
 deeper than others in the public purse — but it would be 
 asking a favour, and would carry with it sufficiently the 
 ' stigma of admitted poverty ' to make every one prefer 
 to wait for their pension till the proper time if it was in 
 any way possible. Thus the moral effect would be good, as 
 well on those who took this road as on those who were 
 able to avoid it. 
 
 Then it may be said would it not be better to abandon 
 the ideal of 70 altogether. Choose the best average age, 
 making the sum allowed whatever the total sum to be 
 voted will admit. Treat every one alike. Trust to the 
 larger hope of savings encouraged, and let the Poor Law
 
 PROPOSALS. 67 
 
 take its chance. This has the charm of simplicity, but 
 the plan I have suggested is better suited to lift the people 
 out of pauperism. 
 
 (14) It is sometimes objected that the cost of adminis- 
 tration would be enormous, and I have been charged with 
 ignoring this difficulty. But that is not so. I have 
 suggested first that the fee needed to obtain a certificate 
 of age might reasonably be paid by the applicant, or 
 become, in cases of poverty, a first charge on the money to 
 be received. This plan is employed for claims under the 
 Workmen's Compensation Act, and has many advantages. 
 From 100,000 to 150,000 persons reach the age of 70 every 
 year, and assuming that 100,000 go before the registrar 
 to make their claim, the cost of deciding their ages 
 should not exceed £100,000, that is an average of 20s 
 apiece, chargeable to the recipients. The cost of paying 
 the pensions would fall on the Government, but it is incon- 
 ceivable that so very straightforward a piece of work should 
 be very expensive. I understand that the payment of 
 ordinary money orders is remunerated by a commission 
 of 20s per 1000 orders. At this rate all the pensions 
 could be paid for £50,000 to £75,000 per annum, and an 
 additional sum of £10,000 or £15,000 ought to suffice for 
 the office at headquarters. If it were necessary, as I 
 think it would be, to employ a doctor in each district to 
 give certificates when illness or infirmity prevented the 
 personal collection of the money, the total charge would still 
 not be very serious. 
 
 (15) Step by step we have reached the last point io this 
 discussion — the question of finance. 
 
 I have laid the scheme before my readers in its entirety ; 
 but, leaving out of account the rich, it still consists of two 
 distinct parts which may, if desired, be taken up separately, 
 i.e., pensions for men and pensions for women, and there 
 may be some advantages in spreading the operations of 
 the Act over two or perhaps three years. It has been
 
 C8 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 suggested by some, who while they favour the principle 
 of general pensions, shrink from the financial plunge, 
 that we should begin with those over 75, or even 80, and, 
 if the plan answered, gradually reduce the age. Such a 
 course would, from my point of view, be inadmissible, as 
 it would create gratuitously a lack of finality very 
 injurious to personal effort. But to dealing with the 
 sexes successively there would be no objection. 
 
 Should this course be adopted, it would be best to deal 
 with the women first, because their claim for aid is the 
 strongest, and because compared to the cost of the pension 
 there would be the greatest immediate savings out of the 
 present charges for poor relief. If sixteen millions be 
 taken as an estimate of the cost of the whole scheme, seven 
 or seven and a half millions would suffice for the women. 
 Then eight or nine millions per annum would be needed 
 afterwards for the men. The seven millions would be 
 needed, let us say, in 1900-1, and nine millions more in 
 1901-2 or 1902-3. 
 
 One advantage of this plan is that the initial pressure 
 on the Registrars, or such other authority as might be 
 expressly appointed, would be mitigated and the whole 
 machinery of distribution be euabled to get gradually into 
 order. Another advantage may perhaps be found in the 
 additional time given for the financial readjustments of 
 increased taxation. 
 
 It, however, remains one scheme. I do not suggest that 
 the women should obtain pensions while the question of the 
 men is allowed to remain open. I admit that women stand 
 on a somewhat different footing, and have the stronger 
 claim, but if we omit the men we lose the greater part — 
 perhaps should poison the whole — of that influence for good 
 on character and habit which alone can justify State action 
 of this kind. 
 
 The total amount, though less than has been usually 
 estimated for Universal Pensions, is still very large. But
 
 PROPOSALS. 09 
 
 I do not think that the largeness of the sum to be provided 
 is so great a difficulty as has been supposed. A popular 
 demand of this character is only one factor the more 
 in the great game of national finance, and may afford an 
 opportunity of adjusting the incidence of taxation without 
 narrowing its basis. 
 
 For instance, there is the question of the relations between 
 Imperial and Local taxation and the huge subventions that 
 have from time to time been granted. The replacing of 
 these, in part, by the providing of pensions for the old, 
 would have many advantages. Of the seven millions 
 required to pension the women, half might, I think, be 
 deducted from the subventions; and of the nine millions 
 needed for the men it might still be possible to find three 
 in the same way. Six and a half millions would thus be 
 thrown upon the rates, but of this sum the larger part 
 would be saved out of Poor Law expenditure. 
 
 There would remain £9,000,000 or £10,000,000, for 
 which new or increased taxation must be provided, except 
 in so far as existing taxation yielded larger returns, or 
 expenditure might be reduced. 
 
 It is no part of my task to suggest sources of revenue. 
 I have no wish to ear-mark this or that tax as peculiarly 
 applicable to this or that expenditure. I draw no such 
 distinctions. In case of national danger we could find half 
 a dozen taxes which might each be pressed to yield such 
 a sum. And it is not unreasonable to hope, both from 
 increased yield of the present taxes and from a possible 
 check to the increase of armaments, that the necessity for 
 further taxation may not be great. 
 
 However this may be, I am justified in claiming that if 
 the demand for pensions be made, the sum needed to 
 provide them on the basis here laid down is not beyond 
 reach of a finance which shall neither press unduly on 
 any class nor imperil at all our financial stability and 
 resources.
 
 70 THE AGED POOB. 
 
 (16) Finally, it is asked, whether we cannot do some- 
 thing better than this with our money. Granted that 
 pensions are desirable, have we not other wants more 
 pressing ? Better houses, more light, more air. A better 
 distribution of pure water, more scientific drainage, 
 improved roads — all things which cost money and which 
 are likely to involve either rates or taxation. I was asked 
 this question when I was myself examined by the Royal 
 Commission in 1893. Since then I have kept it constantly 
 in my mind as a true test question, and I answer now, as 
 I did then, that I know of no way or ways in which an 
 expenditure of up to twenty millions a year could be so 
 well applied for the welfare of the whole people.
 
 PROPOSALS. 71 
 
 III. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 The theory or idea that the foregoing pages develop 
 and illustrate can be traced without doubt to a pamphlet 
 published in 1879, entitled, Outlines of a Scheme for 
 Dealing with Pauperism, of which Mr. R. P. Hookham, 
 of Islip, Oxfordshire, was the author. Mr. Hookham called 
 it then The Question of the Day, and so indeed it was, as at 
 about the same time — a few months earlier — Canon Blackley 
 published his famous article in The Nineteenth Century 
 Review on " Xational Insurance." It has taken just twenty 
 years for these first expressions of opposing methods, 
 aimed at the same crying evil, to run their course. Very 
 little has been added to them, but gradually the public 
 mind has been filled with the consciousness of the evils 
 which were so present to the minds of both Canon Blackley 
 and Mr. Hookham, and with the weight of the arguments 
 adduced by each in favour of one or other treatment of the 
 subject — by insurance or by endowment. From each seed 
 a great tree has grown. Under which of these trees shall 
 we pitch our tent ? 
 
 This question I have sought to answer, and I cannot 
 conclude better than by quoting from the pamphlet, to 
 which I have referred, some of the words in which the idea 
 was first put forward. It had, Mr. Hookham tells us, 
 been in his mind at that time for twenty or thirty years, and 
 now at the age of 92 he may regard with satisfaction 
 its gradual spread, and the hold it has obtained on the
 
 72 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 minds of others, and old man though he be, he may even 
 hope to live to see action taken upon it by the legislature. 
 He states his case as follows : — 
 
 " I shall first take up a position which I believe cannot 
 "be practically controverted — that under existing circum- 
 " stances it is impossible for the labouring poor, and 
 " I have in view more especially the agricultural poor, 
 " having been in immediate contact with that class, it is 
 " impossible, I say, for even the best conducted of these 
 " to lay by a sufficient provision for their 'support in old 
 " age. . . This ought not to be : for I maintain that 
 " every good citizen, having contributed to the wealth of 
 "his country, is entitled to an honourable maintenance 
 " from it, when no longer able from old age to add further 
 "to that prosperity. 
 
 " This principle — short of the honour — is already admitted 
 " by the present Poor Laws; and not the deserving destitute 
 " poor only, whether in want, sickness, or age, but the idle 
 " and dissolute also in like circumstances have equal legal 
 " claim to support. This universal legal right operates 
 " most injuriously : it educates the people to rely on it ; it 
 " makes no distinction, reducing good and bad alike to the 
 " same level. But I hold that a good citizen has deserved 
 " an honourable maintenance, not one that degrades him 
 " into a pauper. 
 
 " I speak with a conviction drawn from intercourse 
 " with the class, when I say that it is to the depressing 
 " influence of the hopelessness of ever attaining to this 
 et most desirable and rightful state of independence, and of 
 " the certainty of being reduced ultimately to pauperism, 
 " that the improvidence so prevalent among the lower 
 " orders may be chiefly traced. 
 
 " The Poor Laws, founded upon a noble principle, and 
 " worthy of a Christian nation have, nevertheless, proved 
 " in practice to be debasing and subversive of order and
 
 PROPOSALS. 73 
 
 ' morality ... To counteract the labourers' improvidence 
 ' with its consequent evils, so far as it springs from the 
 ' causes specified, is the end I have in view ; and I will 
 ' now as concisely as may be, develop my scheme. 
 
 " I would entitle every man at a given age — from the 
 ' highest to the lowest — upon the fulfilment of certain duties, 
 'to a pension from the country. ... I would have 
 ' a comfortable provision for old age plainly within the 
 ' reach of every man ; and I am persuaded that the contri- 
 ' butions which the wealthy classes would be called upon 
 ' to make towards the carrying out of the scheme, would 
 1 in the long run be more than balanced by the reduction 
 ' of poor rates, of costs for prosecution and support of 
 ' criminals, and by the lessening of the calls upon their 
 ' private charity. . . • 
 
 " There is no doubt that three-fourths of the prevailing 
 'distress, pauperism and crime, are more the result of 
 ' recklessness than all other causes put together. The 
 ' drinking habits of the working classes are chiefly to be 
 'traced to this. ... I am firmly convinced that this 
 ' recklessness and improvidence is mainly to be traced to 
 ' the hopeless condition of the labourer. Give him hope, 
 ' and you have struck at the root of his worst vice. 
 ' Inspire a man with the prospect of success in an under- 
 1 taking and you give the motive for exertion to accomplish 
 •' it. Is it not chiefly the desire of securing comforts in 
 'the decline of life that stimulates the middle classes to 
 ' the practice of prudent habits ? So let a poor man feel 
 "that every sovereign he can put into the savings bank 
 ' will go to supplement the pension to which he will become 
 ' entitled from the country, and he would not, as now, 
 ' regard it just as so much saved to the poor rate. This 
 'is literally his feeling now, and it is a sentiment of which 
 ' the mere money cost to the country is something 
 ' incalculable. Only let him feel that what ho can spare 
 
 G
 
 74 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 " from immediate wants will certainly add to his comforts 
 et in old age, and you apply the strongest incentive to 
 " thrift and provident habits. Noiv he has no such happy 
 " prospect, and no such inducement; he is without hope 
 "and his effort is paralysed ; he squanders his earnings in 
 " present gratification, and sinks into pauperism. And 
 " what if these two sources of income, his savings and 
 " his pension, should reach a little beyond the bare needs 
 " of existence ; do a little more than just keep him this 
 " side of the workhouse! So much the better; — would it 
 " not be a fair end of legislation to enable a worthy old 
 " fellow to enjoy the remains of life in comfort and ease ? 
 
 "It is an important feature of this scheme, that it 
 " embraces all classes of society. I would aim at divesting 
 " the pension of the remotest resemblance to a charitable 
 " dole. . . . This, I conceive, cannot be done without 
 " including all classes in the operation of the scheme ; and 
 " every attempt I have made to narrow its working to the 
 " class for whose benefit it is mainly intended has signally 
 " failed. I have found an insuperable difficulty in deciding 
 " where to draw the line, I will not say between those who 
 " shall and those who shall not be benefited by it — for all 
 "will reap advantage — but between those who must 
 " contribute more than they directly get back, and those 
 "who will get more than they contribute. 
 
 "It is now (1879) more than twenty years since these 
 " ideas first became impressed upon my mind ; and no 
 "doubt they are of a novel, perhaps too novel a character. 
 "Yet, if they could be carried out, they would, I am 
 "sanguine to believe, strike at the root of the great evils 
 " I have spoken of; especially being accompanied, as they 
 " would now be, by the recent educational and temperance 
 " movements. 
 
 "Through the many years that this subject has engaged 
 " my thoughts, reflection has from time to time led me to
 
 PROPOSALS. 75 
 
 " regard my views as extravagant, and probably unpractical; 
 " and as often I have let it drop. But these recurring at 
 " long intervals, and with ever-increasing force, I feel at 
 " length under a degree of constraint to give utterance to 
 " them. 
 
 "As an obscure individual thus attempting to thrust into 
 " notice a scheme of such magnitude and importance, 
 " I may incur the risk even of ridicule ; I shall, however, 
 " have satisfied my conscience in discharging what I have 
 " brought myself to believe to be a duty." 
 
 To the writer of these words I very huuibry dedicate this 
 book.
 
 MEMORANDUM 
 
 FBOM THE 
 
 NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF ORGANIZED LABOUR 
 
 Appointed after Seven Conferences of Representatives of Trades Unions, 
 Friendly and Co-operative Societies, in 1898 and 1899, to secure 
 
 A FEEE STATE-PENSION FOR EVERY ONE ON REACHING 65 
 YEARS OF AGE. 
 
 COMMITTEE. 
 
 London or National Unions. 
 Rt. Hon. John Burns, M.P. 
 *Geo. X. Barnes, M.P. (Sec. A.S.E.), 
 
 London. 
 "Margaret Bondfield (Shop Assistants), 
 
 London. 
 F. Chandler, J. P. (See. Carpenters and 
 
 Joiners), Manchester. 
 A. J. Collett (Clerks), London. 
 Will Crooks, L C.C , M.P., Poplar. 
 Emily Janes, National Union Women 
 
 Workers. 
 James Kidd (A.S.E.), Greenwich. 
 John Lamb (Operative Plasterers), London. 
 J. Maddison (Sec. Iron Founders), London. 
 Fredk. Maddison, M.P., Wandsworth. 
 J. Macdonald, London Trades Council. 
 S. Masterson (Iron Founders), London. 
 James Macpherson (Shop Assistants), 
 
 London. 
 E. T. Mendell, London Cabd rivers' Union. 
 Benj. Wright (A. S.E.). London. 
 Alderman Isaac Mitchell (A.S.E.), Lon- 
 don. 
 
 The Midlands. 
 *Edward Cadburv, Birmingham. 
 W. Cope, Birmingham. 
 Allan Granger (Typographical Assoc), 
 
 Birmingham. 
 *Albert Stanley (Miners), Cannock. 
 ♦Councillor J. V. Stevens, Birmingham. 
 Councillor J. Taylor (Midland Trades 
 
 Federation), Dudley. 
 *Robkrt Waite, Danetree Cottage, Linden 
 
 Road, Bournville, Birmingham. 
 W. A. Dalley, 6, Link Road, Edgbaston, 
 
 Birmingham. Convener. 
 
 Northumberland and Durham. 
 *Thomas Burt, M.P. (Northumberland 
 
 Miners), Newcastle on-Tyne. 
 John Johnson, M.P. (Durham Miners), 
 
 Durham. 
 James Burs (A.S.E.), Sunderland. 
 
 R. Knight, J. P. (Boilermakers), Newcastle 
 
 Canon Moore Ede, Whitburn. 
 
 *Alex. Wilkie, M.P. (Sec. Shipwrights), 
 .8, Eldon Square, Newcastle-on-Tyne. 
 Convener. 
 
 Nottingham. 
 
 G. Thunderclifee ; Bakers). President. 
 
 Councillor J. E. Pendleton (Trimmers), 
 Vice-President. 
 
 W. A. Appleton (Lace Makers), Vice-Pre- 
 sident. 
 
 G. Allcroft (Lace Makers), Treasurer. 
 
 J. Thorneloe ^Framework Knitters), IS, 
 Lees Hill St., Sneinton, Nottingham, 
 Secretary. 
 
 W. Wesson (Letterpress Printers). 
 
 G. Butler (Certificated Teachers). 
 
 L. Spencer (Notts Miners). 
 
 S. I Iopkinson (Tool Makers). 
 
 E. Gutteridge (Designers, etc.). 
 
 West of England and South Wales. 
 W. Baster, Bristol. 
 
 F. Freeman (O.S.M.), Bristol. 
 W. R. Oxley, Bristol. 
 
 J. Pearson, Bristol Trades Council. 
 
 *F. Sheppard, Nat. Federation Trades 
 
 Councils, Bristol. 
 S. H. Whitehouse, Somerset Miners, Kad- 
 
 stock. 
 Councillor J. Curle, J.P. 
 *E. H. Jarvis, 91, Greville Road, South- 
 
 ville, Bristol. Convener. 
 
 Lancashire and Cheshire. 
 Councillor W. Carr, Chester, President. 
 F. Stott, Warrington, Vice-President. 
 A. Round, Bury, Trea 
 Geo. D. Kelley, M.P., J.P., Manchester, 
 
 Secretary. 
 E. Byrne. 
 J. R. Clynes, M.P. 
 Councillor Hacking. 
 Councillor Knowles. 
 R. Tootill.
 
 MEMORAXD UM. 
 
 77 
 
 COMMITTEE (continued). 
 
 Glasgow and West of Scotland. 
 
 George Galloway (Kinning Park Co- 
 operative Society), Chairman. 
 
 Jno. A. Glen" (Glasgow anil Suburbs Co-op. 
 Conference Assoc), Treasurt r. 
 
 Jas. Sneddon (Central District Co-op. Con- 
 ference Association). 
 
 C. H. Anderson (Plasterers' Society). 
 
 Daniel Baird (Plasterers' Society). 
 
 Councillor Jas. Boyd (Sec. B.O.A.F.G.). 
 
 John Davidson (Brushmakers). 
 
 Chas. Jackson (Typographical Society). 
 
 William James (Masons). 
 
 John Lithgow (Furnishing Trades). 
 
 Robert Steven (A.O.F.). 
 
 Jas. Young (U.C.B.S. Manager). 
 
 *B. H. Shaw (Glasgow Trades Council), 
 Civic Press, 164, Howard Street, City, 
 Glasgow, Secretary. 
 
 East of Scotland. 
 
 Jas. Lochhead (Co-operator), Chairman. 
 
 Waltkr B. T. Bell (Edinburgh Trades 
 Council), Vice-Chair inn a. 
 
 John Moffat, Treasurer. 
 
 Thos. Wilson (Edinburgh Trades Council). 
 
 Jas. Thorburn (Broxburn Co-op. Assoc). 
 
 Alexander Muir (Tailors). 
 
 David Petrie (Leith Prov. Co.-op. Assoc). 
 
 Geo. Gray (Norton Park Co-op. Assoc). 
 
 Wm. Colville (Pattern Makers)") 
 
 Jno. Stewart (Decorative Glass . ... . . 
 
 Council, 97, Carlisle Street, Cardiff. Workers), 6, Sloan Street,! 
 
 Convener. Leith, Secretary ) 
 
 Chairman — George X. Barnes, M.P., A.S.E. Vice-Chairman — G. D. Kelley, M.P., J.P. 
 Treasurer — Edward Cadbury, Bournville, Birmingham. Hon. Secretaries — *R. Wai'i e, 
 Danetree Cottage, Linden Road, BourneviUe, Birmingham, and *F. Herbert Stead, 
 M.A. (Browning Settlement), 29, Grosvenor Park, S.E. 
 
 * These form the Executive. 
 
 FREDERICK ROGERS, Organizing Secretary, Browning Hall, York Street, Walworth, S.E. 
 
 Leicester. 
 Rev. F. L. Donaldson, M.A., Christian 
 
 Social Union. 
 Job Cobley, Trades Council. 
 Councillor Chaplin, Trades Council. 
 •Councillor Hudson, Foresters. 
 W. Lowe, Boot and Shoe Clickers Society. 
 Amos Sherriff, I.L.P. 
 Thomas Carter, I.L.P. 
 L. Flude, Co-operative Hosiery. 
 A. Hill, Boot and Shoe Operatives. 
 F. Sutton, Printers' Union. 
 J. W. H. Ward, Boot and Shoe Operatives. 
 J. Nicholson, Coach Builders' Union. 
 
 E. Smith, Building Trades Council. 
 
 F. Hughes, Building Trades Council. 
 W. T. Lane, Friendly Societies. 
 
 J. Aldridge, Friendly Societies. 
 ♦Charles Freak, Boot and Shoe Operatives. 
 
 E. IYiynton, Friendly Societies. 
 •James Holmes, Hosiery Federation. 
 
 Yorkshire. 
 
 F. W. Booth, Hull Trades Council. 
 K. Harvey, Bradford Trades Council. 
 Councillor Parker, M.P., Halifax. 
 •Cottkcillor O. Connellan, 3, Faith 
 
 Street, Leeds (Leeds Trades Council). 
 
 Cone: 
 
 diff. 
 Cardiff Trades Council. 
 Councillor J. Chappell, Cardiff County 
 
 The popular agitation on behalf of Old Age Pensions began 
 in 1898, and was the outcome of joint action on the part of 
 the Trade Unions, Co-operative Societies, and many mem- 
 bers of the Friendly Societies of the United Kiugdorn, this 
 action taking shape first in a series of representative 
 conferences, that is to say, conferences consisting of dele- 
 gates elected by various societies to represent them in the 
 deliberations. 
 
 The first of these conferences was held at Browning Hall, 
 Walworth, on December 13th, 1898, and consisted solely; of 
 members of trade unions and trade councils. The following 
 list contains the names of the principal delegates present, 
 and of the societies represented, with the number of their 
 membership, so far as given.
 
 THE A GED POOR. 
 
 Union. 
 
 Engineers ', Amalgamated Society of 
 
 Carpenters and Joiners, Amalga- 
 mated Society of ... 
 
 Gasworkers and General Labourers, 
 National Union of... 
 
 National Hosiery and Dyers' Federa- 
 tion ... 
 
 Iron Founders, Friendly Society of 
 (England. Ireland and Wales) ... 
 
 Associated Shipwrights' Society ... 
 
 Operative Plasterers, National Asso- 
 ciation of ... 
 
 London Cabdrivers' Trade Union ... 
 
 United Builders Labourers' Union 
 
 Shop Assistants, National Union of 
 
 Workers' Union 
 Clerks, National Union of ... 
 Women Workers, National Union of 
 Smiths' and Fitters' Union... 
 Alliance and Furnishing Trade 
 Association, West End, No. 2 ... 
 
 Representative. 
 
 (Geo. N. Barnes, Sec. \ 
 - James Kidd [■ 
 
 (Benj. Wright J 
 
 J. Chandler, J.P., Sec. 
 
 J. Sansom 
 
 Counciller Holmes, Sec. 
 J. Maddison, Sec. 
 S. Masterton 
 A. Wilkie, Sec. 
 
 John Lamb 
 
 E. T. Mendell 
 
 W. Stevenson, Sec. 
 (James Macpherson,Sfr. ) 
 ( Margaret G. Bondfield. J 
 
 T. Chambers, Sec. 
 A. J. Collett 
 Emily Janes, Sec. 
 
 F. W. Newman 
 
 D. Evans 
 
 Member* 
 85,000 
 
 57,000 
 
 42,000 
 
 20,000 
 17,260 
 15,084 
 
 11,430 
 C,850 
 6,550 
 
 2,750 
 
 2,381 
 
 Numbers 
 not given 
 
 Total members of Trade Unions of which numbers are given ... 266,314 
 
 There were also present representatives from four Trades 
 Councils, with a membership of 110,034, but it is right to 
 say that some of their members will have already been 
 counted with their respective unions and the same delegate 
 may have served in two capacities. 
 
 The following persons present as private individuals took 
 part in the debate, but did not vote : — Charles Booth, d.sc. ; 
 Fredk. Maddison, m.p. ; Will Crooks, l.c.c. now si. p. ; 
 G. W. Richards, m.d., m.r.c.s. ; Tom Bryan, m.a. ; F- 
 Butler; T. Holding; W. Wotman ; Henrietta Jastrow, 
 Berlin; F. Herbert Stead, m.a., Chairman. 
 
 At this Conference a resolution w r as carried affirming 
 unanimously the principle of Old Age Pensions for all, at 
 a given age, without contribution from the recipient. And 
 it was decided that the subject should be laid before six 
 special Conferences to be held in various parts of the 
 country, to which the Local Trade Unions, Trades Councils,
 
 MEMORANDUM. 79 
 
 Co-operative and Friendly Societies should be invited to 
 send representatives. 
 
 The next Conference was held at Burt Hall, Newcastle- 
 on-Tyne, on January 17th, 1899, and there were present 
 104 delegates representing : — 
 
 472,058 Trade Unionists, 
 
 81,684 Co-operators, 
 
 0,410 Friendly Society Members. 
 
 At the third Conference, which was held at the St. James's 
 Hall, Leeds, on February 23rd, 1899, there were present 
 delegates representing 84,000 Trade Unionists, and mem- 
 bers of Co-operative and Friendly Societies, but the divided 
 totals are not now obtainable. 
 
 At the fourth Conference, which took place at the 
 premises of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, Man- 
 chester, on February 25th, 1899, 715,600 working men 
 were represented; of these : — 
 
 315,000 were members of Friendly Societies, 
 35,000 were members of Co-operative Societies, 
 
 and the rest, members of Trades Councils and Trade Unions. 
 At the fifth Conference, held at the Hannah More Hall, 
 Bristol, on March 11th, 1899, there were represented : — 
 
 7,500 members of Friendly Societies, 
 4,000 members of Co-operative Societies, 
 
 and probably 20,000 members of Trade Unions, but the 
 Trade Union figures are not obtainable. 
 
 At the sixth Conference, held at Glasgow, at the St. 
 Andrew's Hall, on March 14th, 1899, there were presenl 
 delegates representing : — 
 
 43,000 members of Trade Union-. 
 19,000 ,, Co-operative Societies. 
 
 100,000 „ Friendly Societies. 
 
 While at the final Conference of the series in the 
 Technical Schools, Birmingham, on March 25th, 1899, the 
 meeting was constituted as follows : —
 
 so 
 
 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 Manchester Unity and other Orders 
 
 of Oddfellows ... 
 Ancient Order of Foresters 
 Co-operative Societies ■ ... 
 Trades Councils 
 Trade Unions 
 
 Other Economic Societies ... 
 Ancient Order of Buffaloes 
 Order of Druids 
 Order of Eechabites 
 
 No. of 
 
 No. ofMenibers 
 
 Delegates 
 
 repre- 
 
 sent. 
 
 sented. 
 
 175 
 
 40,843 
 
 132 
 
 37,998 
 
 47 
 
 54,373 
 
 27 
 
 77,450 
 
 96 
 
 105,207 
 
 47 
 
 23,121 
 
 10 
 
 4,612 
 
 17 
 
 3,211 
 
 13 
 
 737 
 
 564 347,552* 
 
 There were also 66 representatives of various City and 
 Town Councils, School Boards and Boards of Guardians, 
 who took part in the proceedings. 
 
 Societies or branches having a membership of less than 
 1,000 sent one representative. No society or branch, 
 whatever its membership, sent more than five delegates. 
 Every individual friendly society delegate represented 
 a separate branch or society. 
 
 Delegates were present from the following Trades 
 Councils : — Birmingham, Burton-on- Trent, Cheltenham, 
 Coventry, Derby, Dudley, Kettering, Leicester, Northamp- 
 ton, Smethwick, Walsall, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton, 
 AYorcester. 
 
 The Friendly Societies' representatives were drawn 
 from the counties of Derby, Hereford, Leicester, North- 
 ampton, Notts., Oxford, Salop, Staffs., Warwick and 
 Worcester. 
 
 And the following Distributive or Productive Co-operative 
 Societies were represented : — 
 
 * This number is not quite complete, as the membership of fourteen 
 Friendly Society Branches was not given.
 
 MEMORANDUM. 
 
 81 
 
 Distributive. 
 Alcester. 
 Birmingham Central. 
 
 ,, Industrial. 
 
 Daventry. 
 Derby. 
 Halesowen. 
 Harbury. 
 Higham Ferrers. 
 Ironbridge. 
 Kettering Industrial. 
 Kidderminster. 
 Kirkby-in-Ashfield. 
 Leek. 
 
 Long Buckby. 
 Malvern. 
 Nuneaton. 
 Eipley 
 Soho. 
 
 Stafford. 
 Stanton Hill. 
 Stapleford. 
 Stone Perseverance. 
 Tibberton. 
 Tipton. 
 Walsall. 
 Whittington. 
 . Worcester. 
 
 Productive. 
 
 Birmingham Tin Plate Workers. 
 Coventry Printers. 
 
 ,, Watch Makers. 
 Kettering Boot and Shoe. 
 
 ,, Clothing. 
 Leicester Printers. 
 Nottingham Printers. 
 Walsall Padlock Makers. 
 
 At each succeeding Conference a resolution was sub- 
 mitted similar to that carried at the initial conference, 
 affirming the principle of Universal Old Age Pensions, and 
 the resolution was carried unanimously in every case, with 
 the exception of one hand held up against it at Bristol. 
 
 In the following year (1900) on October 6th, at the 
 time of the General Election, a further Conference on Old 
 Age Pensions was held in Glasgow, at the Co-operative 
 Hall. There were present 600 delegates, representing 
 
 182 Friendly Societies or Branches of Friendly Societies. 
 62 Co-operative Societies. 
 112 Trade Unions. 
 
 At this Conference resolutions identical with those 
 passed at the previous seven Conferences were carried 
 unanimously. 
 
 On June 1st, 1901, a Conference on the same subject was 
 held at Free Gardeners' Hall, Edinburgh. At this 
 Conference there were presen 31 7 delegates elected by 
 their Societies to attend, comprising : — 
 
 1 73 representatives of Friendly Societies. 
 93 „ „ Trade Unions. 
 
 51 ,, ,, Co-operative Societies.
 
 S2 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 The basis of representation for this Conference was 
 one delegate for 500 members; it is apparent, therefore, 
 that it was a pretty complete expression of the opinion of 
 working class organization for Edinburgh. 
 
 At this Conference the following resolution was carried, 
 one hand only being held up against it : — 
 
 " This Conference is of opinion that, in view of the strain 
 of modern industry, the intensity of modern competition in 
 the Labour Market and the insecurity of employment, 
 more especially with those who have passed middle age, 
 it is imperative that a provision against poverty in old age 
 be made and administered by the State, and that all citizens, 
 male and female, who have reached a given age shall be 
 entitled to claim a pension from the State without any 
 contributory conditions. " 
 
 On Tuesday and Wednesday, January 14th and 15th, 
 1902, a Conference was held in the Memorial Hall, Farring- 
 don Street, London, E.C. 
 
 The Conference consisted of : — 
 
 255 Trade Union delegates representing 705,316 members. 
 74 Co-operative ,, ., 247,465 ,, 
 
 There were also present 17 delegates from Trades Councils, 
 and 5 delegates from Friendly Societies, representing 
 25,400 members. 
 
 At this Conference the following resolutions were carried 
 by large majorities : — 
 
 (1) That this Conference affirms the fundamental 
 necessity of any national scheme of Old Age Pensions 
 being entirely n on- contributory, and is strongly of 
 opinion that such a pension scheme based on any 
 proportion of direct contributions to the funds would 
 be unsatisfactory and unworkable. 
 
 (2) That any scheme to be acceptable to this Con- 
 ference must be universal in its application, and this 
 Conference further believes that, quite apart from any 
 consideration of cost, to attempt to discriminate between 
 the needy and the affluent would stamp it with the taint 
 of pauperism and lower the dignity of the recipient, and 
 that inquiries into the character of individuals would
 
 MEMORANDUM. 83 
 
 reduce it to the level of charity, which would be re- 
 pugnant to the feelings of the country generally. 
 
 (3) That in the opinion of this Conference of Trade 
 Unionists, Co-operators, and other societies it is the duty 
 of the State, by means of Imperial and local taxation, to 
 meet the expenditure involved in the establishment of a 
 scheme of Old Age Pensions. 
 
 (4) This Conference desires to strongly affirm the 
 principle that each, citizen should be entitled to receive a 
 pension from the State on arriving at the age of 60 years. 
 
 On March 21st, 1902, the National Conference of Friendly 
 Societies, at their meeting at Manchester, carried the 
 following resolution : — 
 
 " That this Conference, representing three and a half 
 millions of members, is of opinion that it is the duty of 
 the State to provide an Old Age Pension of not less than 
 five shillings a week to all thrifty and deserving pei'sons 
 of sixty-five years of age and upwards, who are unable 
 to work and in need of the same, and that such a scheme 
 shall place no disability of citizenship upon the person 
 claiming the pension, and the cost of the same shall be 
 raised without any interference with the funds of the 
 thrift societies." 
 
 Coming now to more recent dates, a Conference was held 
 at the Co-operative Hall, Wakefield, on May 5th, 1906, 
 consisting of 280 delegates representing 36 Co-operative 
 Societies, and 154 Trade Unions. 
 
 The membership of the Societies represented numbered 
 387,300. 
 
 At this Conference resolutions in favour of a universal 
 system of Old Age Pensions were carried unanimously. 
 
 On Saturday, September 1st, 1906, a Conference was 
 held at the Town Hall, Rofcherham, consisting of 107 dele- 
 gates, representing 47,402 persons, whose classification is 
 as follows : — 
 
 184. Trade 1 In ion delegates representing LI, 130 members. 
 
 L35 Friend I v Societies ,, 2 ; !, v: !i! ,, 
 
 85 Trades Councils „ 12,200 „
 
 8-1 THE AGED POOR. 
 
 There were also present representatives of Boards of 
 Guardians and Co-operative Societies. 
 
 On this occasion also a Resolution in favour of a universal 
 system of Old Age Pensions was carried unanimously. 
 
 At the following Trade Union Congresses, Resolutions in 
 favour of Old Age Pensions for All as a civil right were 
 carried unanimously : — 
 
 Plymouth, 1899. 
 Huddersfield, 1900. 
 Swansea, 1901. 
 London, 1902. 
 
 Leicester, 1903. 
 Leeds, 1904. 
 Hanley, 1905. 
 Liverpool, 1906. 
 
 At the Liverpool Congress the Resolution was in the 
 following terms : — 
 
 " That the Congress urges upon the Government the 
 necessity of establishing a national system of Old Age 
 Pensions, which shall be universal in its application to 
 all citizens, men and women, on attaining the age of 
 sixty- five years, the pension to be at the rate of at least 
 five shillings per week, and the entire cost of such 
 scheme to be contributed by means of Imperial Taxation, 
 and instructs the Parliamentary Committee to circularise 
 all unions affiliated, urging them to bring pressure upon 
 Members of Parliament through the local branches, and 
 to use every other effort to ensure the passing of an 
 Old Age Pensions Bill during the next year." 
 
 Resolutions are not carried at Church Congresses, but 
 Papers on Old Age Pensions for All were read at the Church 
 Congress in London in 1899, and at the Church Congress 
 at Bristol in 1903, which were received with favour. 
 
 Resolutions have been unanimously carried at the 
 annual meetings of the Congregational Union in 1899 
 and in 1906, while the unanimity of the House of Commons 
 in affirming the principle, during the present and the last 
 administration, has been one of the most remarkable 
 episodes in recent politics. 
 
 Nov., 1906.
 
 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA 
 
 AT
 
 ■\r 
 
 3 158 01147 5653 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 961 282 1