THE UNIONIST PARTY AND OLD-AGE PENSIONS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") Sru,—You advise your readers to get rid of the present Government, even at the risk of putting the Tariff Reformers in power. You prefer them rather than a Ministry under the control of Socialists. Your evidence of this control is the Old-Age Pensions Act. One might accept the advice more easily if one were sure that a new Government would oppose Socialism. I enclose a leaflet issued by the Somerset Division of the National Union of Conservative Associations, which asks for my support because the Conservatives in the present House of Commons have attempted to enlarge the pension scheme at a cost of "fourteen millions instead of the present nine millions," and "have ensured at an early date a wider and more kindly application of the Old-Age Pensions Act." In case you think the case merely local, I note that a London Con- servative newspaper lately repeated day after day on its front page "Tariff Reform Means Pensions at 65 Years." Recollect- ing your long and able defence of free exchange, I find it difficult to believe that the Spectator advises me to vote for
immediate Protection and an addition of five millions to the
[The leaflet in question is a piece of disgraceful political demagogy, and should be repudiated—though we dare say it will not be—by the Central Conservative Office. But our correspondent must remember that to prove a taint of Socialism in the Unionists is not to clear the Liberals. When both sides are smirched we must choose the less bemired. But can any reasonable man doubt that there is less danger of Socialism from the Unionists than the Liberals ? The former may talk Socialism, but they will not go much beyond talk.—They talked of old-age pensions for years, but they never got beyond the stage of loquacious indecision.—We do not wish to defend such a course. It is not only disingenuous, but very bad tactics. But those who, like ourselves, are not mere party men may and should take the fact into considera- tion. As for Tariff Reform, a great deal will have to be done before it is accomplished. Meantime we mean to grapple with the danger that is nearest. That danger is Socialism. To be deflected from fighting Socialism because of a bogy in the future which may never materialise would be most foolish. A wise combatant does not refuse to hit the head within reach because there is another for the moment out of his reach.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
