MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S SCHEME.
IN the current number of the National _Review, Mr. Chamberlain states with great force and clearness, and also, as it seems to us, with the moderation of states- manship, his proposals in regard to old-age pensions, proposals which have been shaped by consideration and dis- cussion. The basis of the article is the speech delivered by him in December, to a meeting of members of various Friendly Societies ; but he has made large additions to the speech on points which seemed to require further elucidation, and has also dealt with the more important criticisms made on the scheme set forth in Birmingham. The result is a definite and practical explanation of what Mr. Chamberlain means by old-age pensions. If we mis- take not, it will go a long way to meet the objections which have been made to the proposal. It shows that a plan can be devised which will neither involve a huge burden on the Treasury, nor interfere with and injure the existing work of the Friendly Societies. But these were the chief grounds on which persons otherwise sympathetic to the notion of using State aid to provide the veterans of labour with allowances which should not be in the nature of poor-relief based their opposition.
Mr. Chamberlain shows conclusively how great is the need for doing something for the hard-working labourer who has reached sixty-five, and then begins to feel his physical powers exhausted. It is a terrible fact that, for this man, there is nothing but the workhouse, unless he has happened to save enough money to support himself or has insured himself against old age. But these excep- tions are unfortunately very rare. The statistics show that, "of every man belonging to the working and the poorer classes, roughly, one out of every two is compelled under existing conditions, if he lives beyond sixty-five, to have recourse to parish relief." This, unfortunately, is not conjecture, but an ascertained fact. As Mr. Cham- berlain put it to the working men he was addressing :— -" Here is a large meeting. I suppose that probably the average of age of those whom I see before me, would be something between thirty and thirty-five. The expecta- tion of life is that out of that number of men of that age, 'rather more than one in two will live to be sixty-five. Half, therefore, of this meeting may live to be sixty-five, and of those, unless a change is made, one in two has, as his only prospect in his declining years, a resort to the tender mercies of the Poor-law. Is not that the answer to the question, Why can't you leave it alone' ? " Clearly the ease is one of those in which a remedy should be dili- gently sought for. We ought not, and cannot, be content with such a state of things. But it may be said the ‘true remedy is to leave the matter to voluntary effort. As soon as the workmen realise what is before them they will organise some form of self-help. Da not interfere • wall the growth of self-help by the enervating help of he State. Let the Friendly Societies do for old-age what they have done for sickness.' Theoretically, we have a considerable sympathy with this way of looking at the .subject. We are no advocates of unnecessary State action. Unfortunately, however, the facts seem to show that it is impossible for the Friendly Societies to induce their members to insure against old age, and to pay the sums necessary to secure a superannuation allowance after sixty-five. They have tried, but practically in vain, to .g:t their members to adopt their schemes. The large -amount of the necessary weekly payment, and the small amount of the pension offered after forty years of pay- ment, have always prevented the scheme from being taken up. It must not be supposed that the Friendly Societies have gone into the work in any half-hearted or perfunc- tory spirit. On the contrary, they have the strongest interest in getting their members to adopt schemes of superannuation. The reason is plain. The Societies, as is well know°, provide sick-pay for the members. But it as not at all easy after and about the age of sixty-five, to say where sickness ceases and the ir.firmities of old age begin. Hence a great deal of money is paid out as sick-pay which is not really sick-pay, but allowances to old men. It is not in human nature to be too strict in cases which are near the line. But unless the Societies are fairly strict in cutting off sick-pay when the real cause of sickness is old age, their financial position becomes gravely compromised. At the present moment, indeed, the financial position of the Friendly Societies, as a whole, is by no means as strong as it should be, and this result is, according to Mr. Chamberlain, by no means unconnected with their failure to arrive at any satis- factory system of old-age pensions. In this context we may quote the words of Mr. Page, a high official among the Oddfellows.—" For those members who on account of natural decay are at sixty-five rendered in- capable of following their daily occupations there is," says Mr. Page, "no provision. If they have during the whole of their lives striven to the best of their ability to regulate their daily conduct upon the lines suggested in their Initiation lecture, and have secured a sound constitution and good health, with the prospect at sixty-five of living on for fifteen or twenty years longer, but are debarred solely by reason of old age and of in- capacity which attends old age from following their ordi- nary occupation, it would seem as if it were so much the worse for them." It is established, then, that not only does public policy require a system of old-age pensions to be carried into operation, but that the Friendly Societies are, on business as well as on philanthropic grounds, most anxious to provide their members with superannuation allowances. It is Mr. Chamberlain's aim to bring these two aspirations into harmony. It might be grander and more imposing to propose a general scheme for giving every one a pension after sixty-five, which should have nothing to do with the Friendly Soeieties, which should, in fact, reach the people over their heads. Mr. Chamberlain, however, is satisfied with some- thing which, though far less heroic, seems to us far more sensible and statesmanlike. He proposes to help the Friendly Societies to offer such liberal terms to their members that these will find it well worth while to pay for an old-age as well as a sick benefit. Possibly it will be said by over-zealous critics that this is not worth doing, and that merely to touch the members of Friendly Societies is a miserable anti-climax. Those who argue thus are in all probability ignorant of how large a portion of the popula- tion are members of the Friendly Societies. Any scheme which could get the Societies to make superannuation one of their fixed benefits would have accomplished an enormous part of the task of making the old age of the work- man less dreary and hopeless than it is at present. Mr. Chamberlain's plan is, then, to make the Government and the Societies partners in the work of providing old-age pensions. He proposes that when the Friendly Societies are willing and able to secure to their members a pension of 2s. 6d. a week in their old age, the Government should step in and should meet their efforts by an equal contribu- tion which would make the pension up to 5s. per week. Two objections have been raised to this. In the first place, certain of the officials of the Friendly Societies dread the notion of Government interference. It is natural enough, no doubt, that these officials should not relish having their operations interfered with by a Govern- ment Department. But as Mr. Chamberlain points out, there is really no need for this alarm. Already the chief Societies have arranged to keep their superannuation fund distinct. All then that would be necessary, would be to put this fund under Government inspection. But in truth the fears of the Friendly Societies are groundless. Keeping quite clear of Government interference is only a matter of terms, and no one suggests for a moment that these terms are to be dictated by the Government. The Societies would have their full say in regard to all arrange- ments. We cannot but believe that if and when the Societies are confronted with a definite offer so advan- tageous to them, they will join heartily in making the scheme a success. The other objection is that of the burden to the National Treasury. And here we must say that we entirely sympathise with those who are anxious—or, if you will, timid—in regard to all great demands on the purse of the State. We have no sympathy with those who talk as if a million here or there were a small thing which the State would never miss. By all means use the resources of the State when good cause is shown, but he is the good patriot who is as careful of the money of the State as of his own. Mr. Chamberlain fully acknow- ledges the necessity for cautious finance. He not only makes out a clear case for doing something, but is strictly reasonable and moderate in his financial proposals. Mr. Chamberlain calculates that to set the Friendly Societies at work to provide old-age pensions need not cost the State any very huge sum. Even if every man and woman in England and Wales, from the highest to the lowest, were to be insured "for the proposed benefits," we presume 2s. 6d. a week, the amount required would only be £5,026,250 annually. But Mr. Chamberlain does not, as we have shown, propose any heroic plan of this kind. He calcu- lates that if only one working man in ten were tempted by the Government offer to help him to an old-age pension, the annual cost would only be £335,000, "while, if one in two were to be tempted, the cost would be £1,675,000." These figures, and we see no reason to believe them incorrect, show that Mr. Chamberlain's scheme cannot be attacked on the ground that it proposes to impose a terrible burden of unknown weight upon the Treasury. In this context we may notice how neatly Mr. Chamberlain dis- poses of this and another objection to his scheme,— namely, that it is sure to be a failure, and will not be taken up by a single working man. "The very same people who argue with one breath against imposing an intolerable burden on the taxpayers, tell us with the next that the class for whose benefit the plan has been devised will certainly not avail themselves of it. If BO, the cost will be nil." We do not, any more than does Mr. Chamberlain, suppose that this outline scheme cannot be much improved. Indeed, we expect, as he evidently does, that more inquiry and more discussion will do much to make it water-tight and workable. Mr. Chamberlain has shown once again his power of taking up a difficult political problem, and hammering it into shape in spite of the sneers of the bystanders. He may sometimes encounter difficulties at first, and his first blows may not always fall true ; but it is better to give a few random taps on the anvil than not to do anything towards shaping the rough iron of legislation. We remember the days when Mr. Chamberlain's scheme for l'ree Education was regarded as a piece of sheer lunacy. "It could not work. The financial part of the plan would mean ruin. It would destroy the voluntary schools. It would ruin education. It could never be carried out." So said the critics. But it was carried out ; and now no one has a bad word to say for it. Free Education is no more looked upon as a piece of legislative madness than the Metropolitan Police Acts.
Before we leave the subject of old-age pensions, we should like to accept Mr. Chamberlain's implied request for criticisms and suggestions. Would it not be possible to get over the objection of the Friendly Societies to State interference in the following way ? It is agreed that half the pension is to be supplied by the State, half by the Societies. Mr. Chamberlain proposes that they should pay this jointly,—i.e., that each shall pay the pensioner 2s. 6d. a week from the age of sixty-five till death. We propose that the State should pay the pensioner the whole 5s. for one-half of that period, the Society for the other half. When a man is sixty-five his expectation of life is ten years. We propose that for the first five years the Society in which he has insured for an old-age pension should pay him 5s. a. week, and that after that the State should pay him 5s. a week as long as he lives. Under these conditions, the State need not in- terfere with the Societies in any shape. All they would want would be proof that 5s. a week was due from the Society after the pensioner was sixty-five and till he was seventy, and that he is seventy. That done, the State would pay their 5s. a week till death. There may be difficulties in the way of this scheme which we do not see. For example, if the liability is to be fairly split, it may be that the Societies should take only four years. That, however, is a matter for the actuaries. They can easily determine what is an equal division of the period as regards the pecuniary burden. It may be, again, that the Societies would prefer the second half of the period instead of the State, but we expect not. They would be glad to know exactly their liabilities. Be that as it may, we hold that Mr. Chamberlain's old-age pension scheme has distinctly been advanced a stage, has passed the gates of theory, and entered the region of practical politics.
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