THE PENSION SYSTEM.
['re THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin, I have before me the programme of extreme Socialist demands to be made at the May Day meeting, in which figures, it is to be feared-not unsuitably, a demand for old-age pensions. Bear in mind that while you have in form, perhaps, one of the most conservative of political Constitutions, you have, or are on the road soon to having, about the most democratic and demagogic of all. Your Monarchy is a venerable form, and when your House of Lords is reduced, as your late Premier proposed, to a legislative nullity, the House of Commons will be absolute ; while it will probably become even more demagogic than it is now. The Americans have an effective though terminable Monarchy in their Presidency, an effective Upper House in their Senate. Yet you see in the case of their military pension-list how even there a measure of this kind works.—I am, Sir, GOLDWIN SMITH. Toronto.
Previous page
