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Updated: June 2, 2025
The English old-age pension law is a mere gratuity in the nature of outdoor relief, giving to everybody who has reached a certain age, without reference to any previous service, tramps or drones as well as workmen. It is a law indefensible in principle and merely the accident of a radical government. The New Zealand law is more intelligent.
It is natural enough, for reasons too obvious to be mentioned, that reformers should dwell exclusively upon the right of every one to support, and neglect to point out the correlative duty of every one to do his best to support himself. The popular arguments about "old-age pensions" may illustrate the general state of mind.
The fact was that the old parchment book beginning A.D. 1553 was quite full and crowded with names, and the rector never troubled to provide himself with a new one. Fortunately this sad business took place long before our present septuagenarians were born, or there would be much confusion and uncertainty with regard to old-age pensions.
This will go on just the same if you go to work for another employer, so long as you work in a factory, shop, mine, mill, office, store, or other such place of business. Meanwhile, the Old-Age Reserve fund in the United States Treasury is drawing interest, and the Government guarantees it will never earn less than 3 percent.
There are many signs that the question of old-age pensions is destined to assume a great prominence in England; although it is probable that the large increase of national expenditure which is certain to follow the unhappy war in South Africa may, for some time, postpone actual legislation on the subject.
Behind the boast of old-age pensions, material benefits and wage regulations, behind the bombast concerning liberty in this country and tyranny in that, behind all the slogans and shibboleths coined out of the ideals of the peoples for the uses of imperialism, woman must and will see the iron hand of that same imperialism, condemning women to breed and men to die for the will of the rulers.
The extreme difficulty of finding any efficient test of thrift is very evident; and those proposed by a large number of the advocates of old-age pensions are so easy as to be almost worthless.
Professing to be a bulwark of the commercial classes against Radical and Socialistic legislation, the House of Lords passes an Old-Age Pensions Bill, which it asserts will be fatal alike to public finance and public thrift, a Mines Eight Hours Bill, which it is convinced will cripple British industry, and a Trades Disputes Bill, which it loudly declared tyrannous and immoral.
German rulers pointed to the comfort of the workers, to old-age pensions, maternal benefits and minimum wage regulations, and other material benefits, when they wished to inspire soldiers for the Fatherland. England's strongest argument, perhaps, was a certain phase of liberty which she guarantees her subjects, and the protection afforded them wherever they may go.
For one thing, benefits under old-age and survivors insurance should be raised $5 a month above the present average of $42. For another thing, the States should be given special aid to help them increase public assistance payments. By doing these things now, we can ease the pressure of living costs for people who depend on those fixed payments.
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