THE PROBLEM OF OLD-AGE PENSIONS.
LTO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."'
have read your article under this heading in the Spectator of December 31st with interest, and believe that your solution of this perplexing problem has much in its favour. The tone of your remarks seems to invite criticism, and you will, perhaps, permit me to offer it. In the first place, then, the merits of your scheme lie beneath the surface, and could hardly evoke enthusiasm in the breast of an average citizen. After all the tall, and often inconsequent, talk on the subject of relieving the disability of age, I doubt if any Government would venture to support a plan which, at the best, would be received with cold indifference, and might even be regarded as an attempt to shelve the whole question. More- over, I fear that you have given insufficient weight to the grow- ing tendencies of industry. One of these tendencies—a charac- teristic strengthened by such legislation as the Compensation for Accidents Act, and fostered by the stress of modern industrial methods—is to eliminate, not the aged only, but even the middle aged from certain wide fields of competition. Youth is the dominant factor of our time. To a workman who finds himself outside the factory gates at forty-five or fifty it will be but cold comfort to hear of a pension that is to accrue at seventy-five years of age, nor would the financial position of such a man be materially improved in the eyes of the friendly societies and other agencies. Under your plan, it is true, the wage-earner may be no worse off than he is now, though even this is doubtfnl if we are to believe Mr. C. S. Loch's contention that State provision for old age will injuriously affect the remnnenttion of labour.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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