Thursday's Times contains a long and important letter on old-age
pensions, signed by Sir William Anson, Mr. J. A. Baines, Sir William Chance, Professor Foxwell, Mr. H. Hobhouse, and Mr. Edmond H. Wodehouse. Their main object is to urge, even at the eleventh hour, that the practicability of the twofold scheme which they suggest— that is, contributory pensions for those who are capable of making contributions, and State-granted pensions for the deserving—should still be considered. " We view," they go on, " with the gravest apprehension the possibility that the Government may yield to the temptation of meeting the general demand for a solution of the problem by providing a slender scheme of free State pensions, slender enough to be within the compass of the five millions or so that the chancellor may find at his disposal, and so limited in regard to the qualifying age or the amount of the pension that it will fail to give satisfaction to any section." We welcome the letter, but we do not think there is much fear of the scheme being a slender one, except perhaps for the first year or two. It has been said officially that the number of pen- sioners under the Government plan will be a million, and as it is hardly likely that the pensions will be less than 5s. a week, the expenditure must be thirteen millions a year.
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