much object to these inquisitorial examinations as to their character. We were challenged by the hon. Member for Preston [Mr. Harold Cox], who said, "Would you go on any public platform and declare that you are in favour of giving a pension of 5s. per week to a drunken, thriftless, worthless man or woman?" My reply is very prompt to that. A man of seventy with nothing in the world to help him is going to cut a pretty shine on 5s. per week, whether his character be good or bad. What could he do with it? It is not enough to keep him in decency, and he would be well punished for not taking care when he had the opportunity if he had to live on 5s. per week. Who are you, to be continually finding fault? Who amongst you has such a clear record as to be able to point to the iniquity and wickedness of an old man of seventy? I said before, and I repeat, if a man is foolish enough to get old, and if he has not been artful enough to get rich, you have no right to punish him for it. It is no business of yours. It is sufficient for you to know he has grown old.

After all, who are these old men and women? Let me appeal to the noble Lord the Member for Marylebone [Lord Robert Cecil]: They are the veterans of industry, people of almost endless toil, who have fought for and won the industrial and commercial supremacy of Great Britain. Is their lot and end to be the Bastille of the everlasting slur of pauperism? We claim these pensions as a right. Ruskin, I think, read you a little homily on the subject- Even a labourer serves his country with his spade and shovel as the statesman does with his pen, or the soldier with his sword." He has a right to some consideration from the State. Here in a country rich beyond description there are people povertystricken beyond description. There can be no earthly excuse for the condition of things which exists in this country to-day. If it be necessary to have a strong Army and Navy to protect the wealth of the nation, do not let us forget that it is the veterans of industry who have created that wealth; and let us accept this as an instalment to bring decency and comfort to our aged men and women,

Extract 31

OPPOSITION TO THE BILL IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS

(Earl of Wemyss, Lords, July 20, 1908)

THE EARL OF WEMYSS,' who had given notice of an Amendment—

That pending the Report of the Royal Commission now inquiring into the principles and working of the existing Poor Law it would be unwise to enter upon the consideration of a Bill establishing the far-reaching principle of State Old Age Pensions

said: . . . Last Thursday the Times, in a leading article, recommended your Lordships to pass the second and even the third reading of the Bill, not on account of any merit it has, but for your own sake, and for the good of your Lordships' House. In the same article, however, there was a sentence which blew all this to smithereens, and I commend it to the notice of your Lordships' House. The sentence ran "But the real objection to the Bill is that it is fundamentally on wrong lines, and is, in fact, not a pension but a Bill giving indefinite extension of outdoor relief.”

It is on that ground that I venture to ask your Lordships whether it is wise to go on with the Bill. I want your Lordships to consider, supposing this to be right, what indefinite extension of outdoor relief means.

I should like to take your Lordships back seventy years. In 1834 the Poor Law, which had existed from the time of Elizabeth, had, by mismanagement and lax administration, produced such a state of things that it was given in evidence before the Poor Law Commission of that date that labourers said, " Damn work! Blast work! Why should I work when I can get 10s. from the rates for doing nothing."

The Commission, on which the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Carlisle sat, reported that all this was due to lax administration,

Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. 192, col. 1335 sqq.

and that stringency in administering the law was necessary. There may be people who say that the law has been too stringent and too harsh, but those two Bishops evidently did not think so. What has happened since then? From that time better administration has prevailed, outdoor relief has been restricted, and the independence of the people has been restored. If, from sentimental motives, Parliament passes this Bill, I hold that you will establish a system of demoralisation amongst the working classes, that you will do away with thrift, that families will cease to regard it as an obligation to maintain those of their members whose working days are passed, and that self-reliance will be diminished.

१

I see in his place my noble friend Lord Rosebery. He, as Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, delivered the other day a most admirable speech, in the course of which he spoke strongly of the need of self-reliance. What he said is so much to the point that I will, with your Lordships' permission, read it. The noblę Earl said: "The State invites us every day to lean upon it. I seem to hear the wheedling and alluring whisper, Sound you may be, we bid you be a cripple. Do you see? Be blind. Do you hear? Be deaf. Do you walk? Be not so venturesome. Here is a crutch for one arm; when you get accustomed to it, you will soon want another- the sooner the better.' The strongest man if encouraged may soon accustom himself to the methods of an invalid; he may train himself to totter, or to be fed with a spoon. Every day the area for initiative is being narrowed, every day the standing ground for self-reliance is being undermined; every day the public infringes - with the best intentions, no doubt on the individual; the nation is being taken into custody by the State." And at the end the noble Earl said, "It was self-reliance that built the Empire; it is by self-reliance, and all that that implies, that it must be welded and continued." Those are wise words, which I humbly recommend to the attention of your Lordships.

I could, if I wished to detain your Lordships, give you unlimited quotations against this Bill. All those who have given their lives.

to the care of the poor and are interested in thrift and other societies are all hostile to the Bill, as it at present stands. I will not quote those authorities, but will be satisfied by reading to your Lordships an extract from a circular issued by the Charity Organisation Society, of which many of your Lordships are members, and which has done excellent work during the last thirty years. That society has issued a circular against the Bill in which they assert that "Neither the Bill, nor anything like the Bill, has ever been demanded by, or received the sanction of, the electors. To delay the passing of the Bill can do no serious injury to the country and will enable the nation to consider calmly the policy of a measure which, for good or bad, produces a social revolution." That is an accurate description of the Bill, and I think it would be wise if your Lordships were to postpone consideration of it until all possible information is obtained. For what are you doing? You will be tying a millstone round the neck of the country and involving it in an expenditure in the end of nearly £30,000,000 a year.

On the very day last week when this Bill passed through the other House there was in France a Commission of the Senate sitting considering a Pension Bill, and that Commission, in spite of the wish of the French Government that the Bill should proceed and that they should report upon it, declined to do so until all the information that could possibly be obtained was before them. My Lords, we are told, Fas est ab hoste doceri, but I venture to suggest that your Lordships might also learn from a friend. I should like to see the entente cordiale of Shepherd's Bush carried to your Lordships' House; and that you should act as wisely, as moderately, and as reasonably as the French Commission are doing. Let me further remind your Lordships of that splendid French maxim Fais ce que doit advienne que pourra, and urge your Lordships to act upon it. I have nothing more to add. I intend to stick to my guns and to divide your Lordships if I can get a teller, and I have secured one. What success we shall have in the division lobbies I do not know, but, at any rate, whatever the result may be, one

thing is certain that all the common-sense and the sense of what is right and reasonable in dealing with such a question as this will be found with the minority. I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.1

Extract 32

DANGER OF DISPUTE WITH THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

(Earl of Rosebery, Lords, July 20, 1908)

I believe this is the most

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY 2: important Bill by a long way that has ever been submitted to the House of Lords during the forty years that I have sat in it. I view its consequences as so great, so mystic, so incalculable, so largely affecting the whole scope and fabric of our Empire itself, that I rank it as a measure far more vitally important than even the great Reform Bills which have come before this House. I confess, to come at once to the Amendment of my noble friend, whom we heard with so much pleasure in such vigour at an age so greatly surpassing the ordinary span of man, that, if you take that Amendment in pure logic, it is extremely difficult to say anything against it. My noble friend says that you should wait for the Report of the Poor Law Commission before coming to a decision upon this Bill. His Majesty's Government have been a little unfortunate, owing to their enthusiasm for legislation, in more than once being unable to await pending inquiries before they proceeded to carry legislation into effect; and I do not know that on any occasion they have been so unfortunate as they have been with regard to this Bill. . . . But when I come to the practical bearings of my noble friend's Amendment I feel much greater doubts, and I must tell him at once that I shall not be able to accompany him and his teller into the lobby which they have projected for themselves. I

1 The Amendment of Earl Wemyss was eventually rejected by a vote of 123 to 16. 2 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. 192, col. 1379 sqq.