THE UNIONIST PARTY AND OLD-AGE PENSIONS. [TO Tug emelt Or
Tile " SPKOTATOR."
Sus,—Permit me, not for the first time, to urge that the Unionist Party, at all events before the approach of a General Election, should adopt as a definite plank in its platform a scheme for contributory old-age and sickness pensions. Old. age pensions, faulty in design, deleterious to the character of recipients, and burdensome in the extreme to the nation, we have already with tie, and they have come to stay. But it is essential that contributory conditions should be introduced, including provisions for sickness, and, if possible, for unemploy- ment. The record of the Unionist Party in this matter does not show quite a clean sheet, thanka to some opportunist tactics on the part of its leaders in both Houses of Parliament; but I believe that the deliberate judgment of the country is to be relied on, and that between the practical alternatives which are before us a sound choice will be made,—on the one hand, with a Liberal Government retained in office, a downhill course of increasing pensions and diminishing discrimination among recipients; on the other hand, a plan safeguarding the independence and character of the working classes, protecting the pockets of the taxpayer, and constituting an effective sub- stitute for the doomed Poor Law. I know of no constructive legislation better calculated to deserve, and more likely to obtain, the confidence and support of the Conservative conunon-sense of the country. If I were myself again seeking electoral votes, I should unhesitatingly nail these colours to the mast, confident that I was not only doing what was best for the country and for the party, but that I was playing a winning card for the polling-day. Canon Biackley'e scheme, revised and amended in view of more recent developments, and improved by Continental experience, holds the field. It only remains for the Unionist Party to fortify and rehabilitate itself by its adoption and strenuous prosecution.---4 am,
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