Speaking at Lancaster on Wednesday, Mr. Asquith - said some
very sound things about• Free-trade. We must. expect to find ourselves in the future in a less satisfactory condition as to the employment of labour and the profits of capital, "but that was just the time when Free-trade would prove the holding sheet-anchor for the vessel of British industry." We agree. But these lean years are surely also the time when we should conserve the financial energies of the nation by a wise and prudent limitation of national expenditure. Yet these are the years in which Mr. Asquith proposes to lay the foundations of a scheme of old-age pensions which in the end will impose an extra burden of some thirty millions a year on the taxpayer. Mr. Asquith's words on the subject of old-age pensions clearly show that the Government are determined to pass their old-age pension scheme this year. Old-age pensions could not be completely established in a day by the wave of a magic wand, but must be built up step by step with due regard to the general financial exigencies of the country, and the money must be drawn from all classes of the community, including the working classes. That it is the working classes. who will in the end bear the burden we have not a doubt. You may think you are taxing the rich man, but by with.; drawing his power of employing the working man the chief weight of the burden will always fall on the latter.. We publish in another column a letter from the Bisbop of Lich- field suggesting an alternative to State-provided old-age-
pensions whiCh deserves the careful consideration Of all . .
interested in this momentous question.
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