(TO TIM EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Some of your correspondents ask what weekly contribu- tions are required to pay for an old-age pension at sixty-five. The Postal Guide and the printed rules of the Friendly Societies supply the information, which is summarised in the Report of the Old-Age Pensions Committee of June, 1898. I extract the following examples. In the Post Office Savings Bank a weekly contribution of 4d., commenced at twenty years of age, will secure a pension of 5s. a week at sixty-five. In the Friendly Societies the cost is considerably less. Thus in the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows the same pension can be secured for the same weekly contribution commencing at twenty-five instead of twenty, or by a weekly contribution of 3fd. beginning at twenty-one, and by members of Friendly Societies insured for other benefits it can practically be secured on easier and more convenient terms still. For instance, in the Manchester Unity the weekly contribution, commencing at twenty-one, to secure sick-pay during life and .funeral benefits is 40. But if a member will commute his claim to sick-pay after sixty-five for a 5s. pension from that age, combined with immunity from all further , contributions, the weekly payment is 60. ; that is to say, his right to the pension costs him weekly only 2id. extra till sixty-five, and nothing at all afterwards. By the rules of a Suffolk branch of the Foresters as fixed in 1896, which are before me, a member entering at twenty-one and paying 6d. a week secures : sick-pay, 10s, per week for twenty-six weeks, 5s. per week for twenty-eix weeks, 3s. ed. per week during remainder of sickness ; pension, 5s. from age of sixty-five, when sick benefits and also contributions cease ; funeral allowance, 210 at death. To this should be added a small contribution for management, &c., which is not stated. This court was founded in a Suffolk village forty-four years ago, the members being chiefly agri- cultural labourers, then earning during most of the year probably not more than 9s. or 10s. a week, if so much. At the end of thirty-three years, in 1890, there were a hundred and sixty-six members, and the audit showed a certified balance of 21,072. In the face of such an object-lesson as this, and in view of the great increase in the wages and resources of working men in the last forty-four years, what are we to say of proposals to load the country with crushing taxation, and to open wide the flood-gates of pauperism, in order to relieve the British workman from the payment of 2id. a week ?- Park. Corner, liechfield.
[In other words, the man who gives up his pint of beer on one day. of the week can secure an old-age pension of 5s. at sixty-five. In view of this fact, it is not unfair to describe State-provided pensions as the reward of thriftlessness.—En. Spectator.]
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