«AfU 1460
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
r
HOW
OLD AGE PENSIONS
BEGAN TO BE
Tm Right Honou r abi y
C H A R I, E S BOOTH,
Privy Councillor,
Photo by Ruucil & Son;.
HOW
OLD AGE PENSIONS
BEGAN TO BE
BY
FRANCIS HERBERT STEAD, M.A.
WARDEN OF BROWNING HALL AND HON. SECRETARY
TO THE NATIONAL PENSIONS COMMITTEE
" — I report as I saw,
I report as a man may of God's work."
ROBERT BROWNING
METHUEN &f CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
Kb
l\Ob
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. " So Mystic "
A.— THE DARKEST NIGHT AND THE DISTANT
DAWN.
II. The Tragedy of " Want and Age " - - 4
ill. The Report of Despair .... - 8
IV. A Secret Eight with Force Unseen - - - - 11
v. The New Zealand Act at the Heart of Empire - - 14
B.— SEVEN CONFERENCES AT STRATEGIC
CENTRES.
VI. A Conference of Surprises ------ 19
vii. The Spiritual Dynamo -------24
viii. Sending round the Fiery Cross ----- 26
IX. The Convincing and Converting Argument 30
x. In the Stronghold of Northumbrian Individualism - 45
xi. Yorkshire, Lancashire, Western England, and Scotland 48
XII. Effect in Parliament 52
xiii. The Voice of the Midlands 54
C— THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF ORGANIZED
LABOUR.
xiv. A Book from Mr. Booth 59
XV. The National Committee formed- 63
xvi. The first Trumpet-blast of Organized Religion 67
xvii. An Ideal Secretary -------- 70
xvin. What might have been !------ 75
xix. By-products of the Movement ----- 78
xx. Roman Cardinal and Anglican Congress - - - 85
D.— IN TIME OF WAR : THE TRIPLE CROWN OF
LABOUR.
xxi. The Primate as Champion of Pensions 88
xxii. Silver Lining to the War Cloud ----- 93
xxin. How we fought the General Election, 1900 - - - 98
xxiv. The General Methods of our Propaganda - 107
xxv. Scotland East and West: and the Co-operators - - 114
xxvi. The first Pensions Premier - - - - - 118
xxvii. Mr. Chamberlain and the Friendly Societies - - 124
v
. 1003871
CHAT.
E.— OUR BATTLE FOR THE BUDGET OF 1903.
xxvni. George Barnes, Chairman ------ 133
xxix. "Why not Pensions in 1903?" ----- 138
xxx. The Winter's Agitation and our draft Bill - 145
xxxi. The Attitude of Liberal Leaders and their Labour Men 154
xxxn. Defeat -- 164
F.— FROM DEFEAT TO VICTORY.
xxxiii. Hearts Failing for Fear - 172
xxxiv. A Memorable Bye-Election ------ 180
xxxv. On the Eve of the National Vote ----- 187
xxxvi. The General Election, 1906 ------ 196
xxxvn. The Commons unanimous for Pensions ... 202
G.— CONVINCING THE CABINET.
xxxvm. Conference of Members of Parliament ... 207
xxxix. Voices of Organized Religion - - - - - 210
xl. In Committee Room No. 14- - - - - -212
xli. Premier and Chancellor and the fourfold test - - 217
H.— HOPE DEFERRED AND LABOUR DEFIANT.
XLii. Too much faith in Ministerial Man - - - - 224
xliii. Mr. Asquith's " Large If " - - - - - - 228
xliv. Warnings to the Government, electoral and other - 232
xlv. New Year Hopes and Fears 238
I.— AT LAST.
xlvi. In the King's Speech ------- 244
xlvii. The Old Age Pensions Budget ----- 247
XLVin. The Second Reading of the Bill 255
xlvix. The Bill in Committee 262
L. That Flag once more prophesying ----- 268
Li. The Third Reading - 271
lii. The Bill in the Lords ------- 276
Lin. The Triumph of Pensions ------ 280
LIV. Thanksgiving 287
LV. Summary of Conclusions - - - - - - 291
APPENDICES.
A. — The Old Age Pensions Act, 1908 - - - - 304
B. — The National Pensions Committee in 1908 - - 311
C. — Number of Pensioners - - - - - - 3 X 5
D. — Thanks : —
1. The Thanks of the Government to the
Browning Settlement ----- 316
2. Presentation to Frederick Rogers - - - 316
3. Address to Mr. Charles Booth from the
National Pensions Committee - 317
E. — Suggested Tablet 318
VI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Right Hon. Charles Booth, Privy Councillor - Frontispiece
Browning Hall - Facing page 16
The Right Hon. Thomas Burt, M.P., Privy Councillor „ „ 45
Edward Cadbury, Treasurer to the National Pensions
Committee - - - - „ „ 64
Frederick Rogers, Organizing Secretary to the National
Pensions Committee - -
George Cadbury - - - - _
The Warden's Room, Browning Hall - - „ „ 108
Clayton Hall - - - - - „ „ 108
George N. Barnes, M.P., Chairman of the National
Pensions Committee - - - ,, „ 13?
Will Crooks, M.P. - - - - „ „ 164
7°
75
How Old Age Pensions
Began to Be
CHAPTER I
" SO MYSTIC "
" I view its consequences as so great, so mystic, so incalcu- f w0 Eminent
lable, so largely affecting the whole scope and fabric of our Witnesses.
Empire itself, that I rank it as a measure far more vitally
important than even the great Reform Bill."
That is the testimony of one who has been Prime Minister.
"It is a new departure, reaching along an almost
unmeasured road of future social progress."
That is the testimony of one who is Prime Minister.
Both statesmen were speaking of the measure which by
Royal Assent on August ist became the Old Age Pensions
Act, 1908.
There is a deeper witness than theirs. But even their
words are sufficient to raise and press the inquiry :
How did this Act come to be?
The effect is admittedly momentous. What was the cause?
It is not enough to point to the machinery which ground The source of
the Bill into law. It is not enough to recite the majorities in * ne fr*" 08.
Parliament, or the decisions of Cabinets. They, like the
work of the Parliamentary draftsmen, or the formula of Royal
Assent, have their place in the mechanics of legislation. But
these do not supply the driving power.
General Elections, too, like divisions in Parliament, only
register the force which has been generated ; they do not
generate it.
The mainspring of this new departure, which is greater
than the great Reform Act, and opens up an unmeasured
2 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
prospect of social reform, lies far below all kinds of electoral
apparatus.
It lies deep in the nation's heart.
What put it there?
The national purpose — that is the vital thing. To call that
into being', to strip it of entanglements, to shape it, to con-
centrate it, to press it home to achievement — these are the
real, the decisive, the creative processes. And mingled with
them is " something far more deeply interfused," which
arouses the most fascinating and most entrancing interest
of all.
"Mystic" Not alone the " consequences," but the antecedents also
Antecedents, are " mystic. "
It is with these dynamic beginnings that I am here con-
cerned. They form the main theme of my story.
It is a story that needs to be told. In many quarters the
arrival of Old Age Pensions is a portent unexplained. They
cannot understand it. It has not come the usual Party way.
General Elections have been fought on other and lesser issues.
This stupendous reform seems to them to have crept in
unawares. Its real genesis must be told.
Aim and _ The motto from Browning which appears on the title page
Limits of this s t ates at once the aim of my work and its limits,
work
" I report as I saw." I give evidence of what I witnessed.
I state what I have seen, heard, felt, handled, or otherwise
experienced. I attempt no survey of the entire Pensions
movement as it marches round the world. I limit myself to
what has passed under my own ken. And if the limit imposes
on the narrative more of a personal tone, be this forgiven me.
Let me be regarded but as the sensitive tissue on which the
rays have thrown their image, and which outlines the result
in words, not shades. For I was in the thick of the things
that I report.
Important as it may be to sweep together generalizations
from such evidence as has found its way into print, it is more
important to provide or procure the first-hand evidence
without which the generalizer laboureth but in vain. And
the importance deepens when the evidence touches on the
mysterious Region which is the source of true initiative and
the home of infinite force.
"As a man " I report as a man may of God's work." The report must
may." be human ; therefore marred by all manner of defects : defects
of vision, defects of utterance; warpings of purpose and
" SO MYSTIC " 3
straining of aim ; it must be only in snatches and with many
a stammer. Even within its narow range it must be subject
to every kind of allowance for the " personal equation. " But,
because human, it ought to be humble and reverent, and
touched with a devout shyness, yet driven by an unconquer-
able Impulse, while at the same time as simple and candid
and trustful as a child. And the certainty of failure in these
respects flings the reporter back on a deeper certainty still.
He can rely, " as a man may," on the Grace that forgives.
/
A.— THE DARKEST NIGHT AND THE
DISTANT DAWN
CHAPTER II
THE TRAGEDY OF " WANT AND AGE "
In Leicester
Workhouse.
Radical and
Conservative
agreed.
The first public word I spoke on Old Age Pensions had a
setting that proved to be a symbol of things to come.
It was in Leicester Workhouse. I was speaking to the
inmates on a Sunday afternoon. Before me were the old
folks, men and women both. The sight was one to move any
heart to pity. I spoke to them from the first Beatitude :
" Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God." I
told them how the words were coming true : the poor were
receiving their kingdom, outwardly now, as always inwardly.
I talked of the better time at hand.
The country was then passing through the General Election
of 1885, and a great deal was being said about Old Age
Pensions. There were present at the service a Radical
guardian and a Conservative guardian, both there to see that
all went well. I knew that political sensibilities are easily
stirred, but I felt it right to refer to the prospect of pensions
for the worn-out workers, as illustrating some of the blessings
which the Kingdom had in store.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear afterwards that no one's
political teeth had been set on edge. Conservative Guardian
agreed with Radical that the prospect had comforted the poor
folks, and both were glad of it.
This little incident showed the hope which was stirring in
the heart of the people, cheering the poor, and already uniting
" good men of all parties."
The hope naturally deepened in earnestness when I came
to live in Walworth, as Warden of the Settlement that
takes its name from Robert Browning. One of my earliest
messages to the people was about the good time of civic security
THE TRAGEDY OF " WANT AND AGE
that was approaching when old men and old women would
no longer be imprisoned in workhouses, but should sit, as
Zechariah had pictured, in the open spaces of a Garden City,
each man leaning on his staff " for multitude of days." I
soon found there was need of something much more tangible
than pictures and hopes.
I did not know then that I had come to the very metropolis
of aged poverty. I did not know then that Southwark had
the largest proportion of aged pauperism to the population
of any Poor Law Union in England and Wales. That I
learned afterwards. But I did know the bitter facts of many
an aged life. I knew men who had served the same firm for
more than twenty years turned away at a week's notice,
because they were "too old." I saw the effects of that
stunning blow. I saw the almost frantic search for another
job that could never be found. I saw the sickening of heart
that sank into despair. Everywhere the same answer was
given, couched in differing phrase, but always meaning,
" You are too old to work. "
I saw what came of them. In some cases they went to live
with a poor son or daughter. They knew they were a heavy
extra charge upon the meagre income of the narrow home.
Yet there they had to stay, until the burden could be no longer
borne, or unemployment came and there was " nothing
coming in " either for child or for parent.
I saw the old men in desperation applying for charity. I
knew the galling inquisition they went through. I knew the
pitiless exposure to prying eyes of their life's nakedness.
And I saw them, after this ordeal, refused the help they
sought and almost thought they had obtained — refused
because of some long-gone fault in early life.
I saw men past work persist in trying to work. I saw men
who trembled for very age hawking trifles in the streets, and
tottering on through mud and sleet and icy wind. I saw men
slowly wither up, body and soul, under the blighting sense
that they were wanted nowhere, and a burden everywhere.
When he is forsaken,
Withered and shaken,
What can an old man do but die ?
Only those who have seen it can conceive the misery of the
poor old fellow who finds that society has no longer any use
for him, who feels he is done with and done for. Manly old
men came to me, with tears running down their cheeks,
imploring me as if I were Almighty God to have pity on them
and get them work — " Anything, oh, anything, no matter
what it is, to keep me from the workhouse ! "
Where Aged
Poverty was
acutest.
Bitter
" Charity."
HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Working of the
Economic
Standard.
More dreaded
than Hell.
Starvation
preferred.
"The best Club
in Europe."
They were not thriftless, drunken vagabonds. Far from
it. Many of them were, and had always been, thoroughly
respectable, sober, honest, thrifty, hard-working men and
women, Godfearing too, who had brought up families in the
same good way, but who in the end of life found themselves
forlorn and destitute. To the burden of years, always hard
enough to bear, was added the still more crushing burden of
want and shame and social neglect.
I saw how generally the economic standard had thrust out
the ethical from English life. The moment a man ceased to
be of value as an economic tool, he was flung aside as
altogether worthless. Age, far from being reverenced, was
despised and rejected of men. In place of " that which should
accompany old age — honour, love, obedience, troops of
friends," was offered — Newington Workhouse, where old
folks had to sit on benches without backs.
I saw how my old neighbours dreaded that last resort.
They loathed the gate of the workhouse, I fear, a great deal
more than the gate of hell. It represented to their minds —
not altogether justly, perhaps — "the weariest and most loathed
life that age and ache and penury and imprisonment could lay
on nature. " High-hearted women driven into it by utter want
of home and food, died of very shame. The degradation of
it simply broke their heart.
Other neighbours of mine, rather than enter the workhouse,
deliberately endured and concealed the slow tortures of
starvation. The truth came out after death, at an inquest
possibly. Evidence showed that the deceased had repeatedly
been pressed to go into " the House," but had invariably
refused. The medical examination proved that he had been
starved to death. The memory of certain aged deaths lies
still like a burning blister on my soul.
A suburban friend, hearing some of these tragedies,
exclaimed: " If I lived where you do, it would kill me; I
could not stand it. " But our feelings, of course, do not count
compared with theirs.
The little we could do to relieve or comfort a few was
nothing to what was needed. But there was hope that the
nation would at last awake to a sense of its duty to its aged
members. It was again and again a hope deferred; and the
heart grew sick.
Sometimes, when I thought of all those legislators sitting
in their hall at Westminster, only two miles away from all
this misery, and spending their time in talk on any or every-
thing but the sorest needs of their country, my heart grew
THE TRAGEDY OF " WANT AND AGE " 7
hot within me. The words of the ancient prophet rose often
to my lips : —
"Woe unto the shepherds that do feed themselves!
Should not the shepherds feed the sheep? Ye eat the fat, ye
clothe you with the wool ; ye kill the fatlings ; but ye feed
not the sheep."
Our Governmental shepherds were not, however, wholly
idle. A Royal Commission on the Aged Poor had reported in
1895. A Committee of experts was considering the possibili-
ties of Old Age Pensions.
The hope still lingered that means would be found to relieve
and remove this mass of aged misery.
CHAPTER III
THE REPORT OF DESPAIR
Lord
Rothschild's
Committee.
A Million in
Misery.
In the summer of 1898 the Committee on Old Age Pensions
presented its report. It was, as has been said, a committee
of experts, with Lord Rothschild in the chair.
It contained shock upon shock.
It gave an appalling estimate of the extent of aged poverty.
It reckoned that the number of persons in the United Kingdom
who were above the age of 65 years amounted, in round
figures, to some two millions : of all this total two-thirds were
computed to require aid. The exact words of the Committee
were : " This total [of about two millions] also includes those
possessed of means sufficient to sustain themselves indepen-
dently of State aid in their old age. . . .
" It would perhaps be reasonable to assume that the
number who would not require aid would be at least one-third
of the total population above the age of 65 years. "
In plain, plump English, the Committee's statement meant
TWO-THIRDS OF THE AGED ARE IN WANT.
Two-thirds of 2,000,000 works out at about 1,330,000.
That is the figure upon which the Committee proceeded to
base its further calculations.
1,330,000 old folks in want !
I had comforted myself with the thought that Southwark
was exceptional ; the worst was surely clotted there, and had
gathered around me. Aged poverty was, of course, present
in other Unions ; but I was not prepared for the hugeness of
the computed total.
I found that the cases which I had seen and which had cut
me to the heart were but a sample of what was going on in
more than a million lives. Each instance that had come under
my notice I must multiply a million times if I would approach
to a conception of the total mass of aged wretchedness.
Over a million old people were in want. Over a million old
people were faced with the four dread choices : To be a
burden on their relatives, who were mostly heavily burdened
8
THE REPORT OF DESPAIR
to begin with : to be a burden on "charity," with its inquisi-
torial indignities and its galling patronage : to be a burden
on the rates, with consequent disfranchisement and degrada-
tion : or simply to die of starvation. Be a burden they must,
if they lived. Only by death could they cease to be burden-
some. " Honour thy father and thy mother ! " O England !
wealthiest country on this side the globe, how hast thou
honoured the fathers and mothers of thy people whose days
have been long in the land ?
The grievance thus disclosed was simply colossal. What Was there a
remedy had the Committee to suggest — this company of Kemed y
experts whom the nation had selected as its wisest counsellors?
Here came the worst shock of all.
Remedy to suggest they had NONE.
Their own words are : —
' We have been forced to the conclusion that none of the
schemes submitted to us would attain the objects which the
Government had in view, and that we are ourselves unable,
after repeated attempts, to devise any proposal free from
grave inherent disadvantages." These picked advisers of
the nation declared that they could neither discover nor devise
any scheme to meet the need.
There was a man of the name of Charles Booth
Oh, yes ! But the Committee would not even consider his
scheme, found it incompatible with the terms of the reference,
excluded it therefore summarily.
NO remedy !
Worse followed.
The negative findings of the Committee were to all appear-
ances acquiesced in by the responsible leaders of the nation.
There was no sound of dissent in authoritative circles. There
was no whisper of brushing aside the doleful " conclusions,"
or of reopening the question.
The feeling then prevalent in the repositories of power was
pretty accurately expressed to me some months later by one
who stood very near to the then Prime Minister : "The men
who have made long and careful study of the question," he
said to me, ' ' have reluctantly come to the conclusion that
nothing can be done. If any practicable proposal could have
been advanced, they would have advanced it. It is a great
and complicated problem. And if those who have studied it
with every wish to help the aged poor cannot suggest any
solution, how can the rest of us, who are, to say the least, not
experts, undertake to do anything?"
Paralysis of
Leadership.
io HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
I took it at the time, and later events confirmed the
impression, that the students of the question referred to
included not merely the experts of the Committee but also a
member of the Cabinet, whose name was often associated with
Pensions, who said later that he had given days and nights to
the study of the question.
Still, therefore, no remedy !
Think of what that meant to us : to our poor neighbours
in Walworth : to the million and more scattered over the
country of the indigent aged.
It sounded a knell of despair.
But God was not dead.
CHAPTER IV
A SECRET EIGHT WITH FORCE UNSEEN
How long the gloom which Lord Rothschild's Committee
had shed would have hung over the lot of the aged, had the
Mother Country been left to her own devices, Heaven only
knows.
Happily, we have Colonies. flu first
Their most imperial contributions have been, not con- gleam of
tingents to help us in the perils of war, but social experiments dawn,
to guide us in the problems of peace.
The first ray of light that split the cloud of negative
conclusions came from New Zealand.
The Report of Despair was issued about midsummer. In
the autumn of the same year came the antidote. "Thunderless
lightnings ' brought the glad news that what the Home
Country could not find out how to do, her most progressive
Colony was boldly purposing to do.
New Zealand was passing through its various stages an What New
Old Age Pensions Bill — and one which was to give 7s. a week Zealand dared
to every needy and worthy applicant over 65 years of age ! *° do.
I was privileged to know the Agent-General of the Colony,
formerly its Minister of Labour, author of its Industrial
Arbitration Act, and one of its most fontal souls. The Hon.
William Pember Reeves had already spoken at Browning
Hall (the meeting-place of the Settlement) on four different
occasions. As soon as I saw the cablegrams from New
Zealand, I asked Mr. Reeves to come down and expound the
new measure to the men of Walworth. Such a dawn of hope
must be diffused as quickly and as widely as possible. Mr.
Reeves replied that until the Bill became an Act it was still
in the region of controversial politics, and as official repre-
sentative he could not treat of it before it was finally enacted.
The enactment followed in due course. I reminded Mr.
Reeves of his promise, and he arranged to come to Browning
Hall on Sunday afternoon, November 20th, 1898. Bills were
posted and leaflets were circulated announcing the fixture.
11
iz HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Laying bare Then came to me a strange inward experience. It is hard
the soul. to describe. Many would think that it ought not to be
described. The habit of reticence about the ; .nermost life is
instinctive with most Englishmen. They have no objection to
talking of physical health. But a word about what is at once
highest and deepest within us, they put down as extremely
bad taste. I fear that some who are keenly interested in the
story of the progress of Pensions will regard what I have now
to say as an unfortunate intrusion of self, as an exposure of
the soul which is scarcely delicate, or even decent. I must
just take the risk of such criticism. My duty leaves me no
option. I may not hide even the inmost processes that are
bound up with the overt and momentous sequel. It is part
of the witness I have to bear.
The week before Mr. Reeves's visit I lived in the inner
world. I was indisputably active in the ordinary work of the
Settlement. The winter programme was then in full tide.
We were, besides, just launching a scheme for building
Tavern and Clubhouse at a cost of ^4,000 or ^5,000. There
was more than the usual whirl of intense and crowded
activity. But the work of the week to me was — prayer. It
filled the interstices of each day's duties. It filled the waking
moments of the night.
A battle in When the week began, and the coming Sunday afternoon
the dark. claimed attention in prayer, there rose up within me a con-
sciousness which can only be hinted at in terms of the senses.
A great darkness seemed to settle down on the soul and
threatened to envelop it wholly. This I felt I must not let it
do. It was a huge foreboding of ill which chilled me, but
which I felt I must strive with all my might — and more than
all my might — to vanquish. As I recall it now, the deepest
impression left was that of Opposing Force. And against it
I had to struggle with every force of will that I possessed, or
could command, or could implore.
What it portended, I could not tell. The two certainties
were that it was there, and that it related to the next Sunday's
meeting. All else was conjecture, and to no conjecture was
the stamp of certitude affixed. I was naturally and intensely
alarmed. Such challenge to all the resources of the soul had
only come to me before great turning points in my own life or
in other lives closely entwined with mine. What was the
crisis impending now?
"The spectres My fears ran in the direction of supposing that harm might
of the mind." accrue to the Settlement from the anticipated meeting. The
idea seems ridiculous now, when the broad freedom of the
Kingdom of God has wellnigh everywhere been conceded to
A SECRET FIGHT WITH FORCE UNSEEN 13
the P.S.A. platform. But then it was not unchallenged.
And the suggestion was ready that some good friends, whose
zeal was great but not according to knowledge, might make
what they would call the secular nature of the forthcoming
address the occasion of a "dead set" against the Settlement.
The surmise was of no consequence : it was purely subjective :
it was never certified within or verified without. I only
mention it out of candour, to show how entirely in the dark
I was as to the meaning of this strange conflict.
Of the reality of the force I had to meet, I could have no The Opposing
manner of doubt. I knew it, as I know any force, by the Reality.
amount of countervailing force required to check it. It took
the whole of me, and more than me, to stand against it. Is
not resistance a measure of reality ? The pressure demanded is
proof of the opposing pressure ; and when the entire person-
ality was strained to the utmost to oppose, only flippancy
could suggest there was nothing there to be opposed.
There I was, all the week long, battling in the darkness :
only able to hold my own by help from above continually
implored and continually bestowed. I felt the need of being
ever on the alert, lest by slip of hand or foot I should be
overthrown. And there kept running through my mind the
sense of the words of Charlotte Elliott : —
Watch as if on thee alone
Hung the issue of the fray.
I had the vague feeling that much, very much, for others
depended on the outcome of my struggle.
Not till Sunday morning did the battle cease. Then was The pledge of
given me the certainty of victory. I knew that all would go well, victory.
What forces had been overcome, I knew not. Eleven years
have passed since then, and I can still give no clear explana-
tion or sure analysis of the force I had to meet. Of the Force
that played through me, of the Force by which I overcame,
I had no doubt : nor could have ; the intimacy graciously
vouchsafed through the course of a lifetime could not be
mistaken. He gave me the victory.
How much was involved in that victory, how far it was to
extend, I had then no idea. Subsequent events were to unfurl
its significance. But before I report what the victorious
Power wrought on the open plain of public life, I must make
grateful confession of His working in the recesses of one
human consciousness.
Of the more distant consequences, however, I had no dream
that Sunday morning when the encounter was over. My only
thought was of the afternoon meeting, and of the glad
assurance that had been given me about it.
With band
and placard
at the fair.
A portent.
CHAPTER V
THE NEW ZEALAND ACT AT THE HEART OF
EMPIRE
The first item in the day's programme was to rouse
Walworth to a sense of the importance of the meeting and
of the news from New Zealand. On Sunday mornings
Walworth concentrates in the open air market which then
fills East Street for about a quarter of a mile. To this
Sunday market, accordingly, we proceeded with our brass
and reed band, displaying placards and distributing handbills.
We had often been in East Street before on summer
Sundays, and had gathered goodly crowds about us. But
never before had we created so great a sensation. When
the people saw the announcement —
Old Age Pensions :
SEVEN SHILLINGS A WEEK
After 65 Years of Age.
HOW NEW ZEALAND DOES IT
will be explained by the
Hon. W. P. Reeves,
Agent-General for New Zealand
and formerly Minister of Labour,
at
Robert Browning Hall,
York Street, Walworth, S.E.,
on
Sunday, Nov. 20th, at 3.30 p.m., —
the effect was electric. Bird-fanciers, sporting tipsters,
vendors of quack medicines, and the numerous other
attractions of the fair were neglected. The people rushed to
our " pitch " and crowded round with immense eagerness to
hear about the great new Deed of Hope. I was amazed.
Here indeed was potency of popular force of incalculable
political consequence ! What touched such a throng to the
quick would, I felt sure, before long rouse the nation, if only
NEW ZEALAND ACT AT HEART OF EMPIRE 15
statesmen could be found who knew their opportunity. About
me surged the groundswell of the coming change.
The meeting at Browning Hall may fairly claim to be
historic.
The hall — in the midmost division of the capital of Empire,
and in the metropolis of aged poverty.
The subject — the first Old Age Pensions Act ever passed in
the British Empire.
The speaker — the official representative in the seat of
Empire of the enacting Colony.
The meeting — the first in the Imperial capital at which the
Act was to be expounded.
And the auspices — entirely religious.
Rarely has there been a more significant conjunction of
circumstances.
Mr. Reeves had before him some four hundred typical
working men. He had beside him on the platform leaders
of British labour, the venerable Secretary of the " Liberal
Forwards," and two representatives of American universities.
One letter was read which may be cited for its later
significance : —
" It would have given me great pleasure to come to your
Settlement on Sunday and hear Mr. W. P. Reeves, but I am
sorry to say I shall be out of town. Thanking you for giving
me the chance, I am, yours faithfully, Chari.es Booth."
Mr. Reeves's address was a lucid, vivid and tempting
exposition of the Act. It was followed with the keenest
interest and the most demonstrative sympathy. The pro-
ceedings were opened and closed with singing and prayer, and
there was an unmistakable ring of religious enthusiasm both
in the tone of the speakers and in the response of the hearers.
The Act was claimed from the first as an endeavour to
express the social providence of the Christ as it works
through the conscience of the democracy. Awe and joy
mingled in the sense of the new hope that had dawned for
the aged poor.
As the meeting dissolved, I was more than satisfied. The
assurance of the morning had been amply fulfilled. There
had been no jar or hitch in the proceedings. The spirit had
been admirable. The great Colonial precedent had been
suitably set forth ; our men had been instructed and stimu-
lated. Next morning the newspapers would repeat the effect
on the world at large, public opinion would be roused,
popular hope would stir. My heart was filled with gladness
and gratitude.
A memorable
occasion.
The new Law
expounded.
The inward
pledge fulfilled.
16 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
A staunch
Comrade.
That, I thought, was the end of the matter.
But it was not.
A voice from In the evening, a member of our P.S.A. Brotherhood came
the ranks. to me — Mr. A. E. Ball, afterwards a councillor of the
Borough of Southwark. He said : " Some of us have been
talking over the meeting this afternoon. We hope you are
not going to allow all this enthusiasm to evaporate without
doing something."
I asked him what he thought could be done.
" Could you not call a Conference to consider whether
something could be attempted for our old people like what
has been done in New Zealand? "
I thought awhile, and then answered : " Well, Mr. Charles
Booth wrote in a very friendly way, as you heard this
afternoon. He is the man, if we could induce him to come.
Then we might have a Conference that would be worth
considering. I might write and ask him."
I felt that the desire of the men for further action ought to
be respected, and therefore acted upon.
So slender was the filament along which ran the current of
Initiative.
Before approaching Mr. Booth I went round to the offices
of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, then in Stamford
Street, and consulted my friend Mr. George Barnes. I had
come to know him during the Eight Hours struggle of the
previous year : and was glad to find that he had made more
friends by defeat than most men make by victory. As the
principal Labour leader in our immediate neighbourhood, he
could advise better than any other as to the outlook and
prospect of the suggested Conference.
He entirely approved the idea, and promised his hearty
co-operation — a promise nobly fulfilled, as the sequel will
show.
So I wrote to Mr. Booth.
The fontal As this was another link in the chain which destiny was
Person. forging, I ought to explain that I had never even seen that
eminent man. I had, it is hardly necessary to say, long
admired him from a distance as the foremost of living
sociologists, as the founder of the modern Science of Cities,
who had with splendid audacity selected for his task of
investigation and description the greatest city in the world,
whose resulting book on the Life and Labour of the People
in London had become the classic of civic study all the world
over, and who had yet contrived, amid these immense
labours, while also active director of a great shipping firm,
to make the question of Old Age Pensions peculiarly his
<
X
o
z
z
o
Pi
ea
coincidence.
NEW ZEALAND ACT AT HEART OF EMPIRE 17
own. But would he consent to come to a Walworth
conference?
Glad was I to know he would. In the letter dated 24,
Great Cumberland Place, November 23rd, 1898, he wrote :
" I think I can promise to come to you on the evening of
Tuesday, December 13th : and I should suggest an invited
meeting as more likely to be fruitful than a public one. But
I do beg you will not make too much of me in the matter,
though I shall be very glad to join in discussing the subject."
The last sentence is characteristic.
The choice of date was an interesting coincidence. It was A double
the day after the eighth anniversary of Robert Browning's
death. It was the exact anniversary of the day four years
previously when a small company of friends met in quiet
prayer to commence the Robert Browning Settlement. I
need hardly add, the coincidence was neither designed by
Mr. Booth nor intended by me.
For this doubly significant date the Conference was
arranged. It was under the auspices of the Public Questions
Committee of our P.S.A. Brotherhood. It was primarily
intended to be a local Conference for the education of local
opinion, and for the instruction of our men. This was the
circular of invitation : —
Browning Settlement,
82, Camberwell Road, S.E.
December 3rd, 1898.
Conference on Old Age Pensions.
Dear Sir, — Mr. Charles Booth has kindly consented to
meet representatives of Trade Unions and Friendly Societies
at the Robert Browning Hall, York Street, Walworth Road,
S.E., on Tuesday evening, December 13th, 1898, for confer-
ence (not of a public character) on the subject of " Old Age
Pensions."
I have pleasure in inviting you or another friend represent-
ing your Society to meet Mr. Booth.
A reply would oblige, yours faithfully,
F. Herbert Stead, Warden.
Tea and Coffee at 7.30 p.m.
Conference at 8 p.m.
I had expected the Conference to be a purely local one. But
a great surprise awaited me.
A hundred circulars were printed. Having sent out all the
local invitations, I had a few copies to spare. It struck me
I might send them to Labour friends in different parts of the
c
Result.
18 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
country — just to let them know what we were doing in the
matter. They were sent out accordingly, for purposes of
information, I repeat, and not for purposes of invitation. I
lay stress on this point.
Aa To my intense astonishment, acceptances came in from
Astonishing Bristol, Leicester, Hull, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle. And
not from unofficial, irresponsible persons, but from secretaries
and other chosen officials of some of the largest national
Unions.
The casual despatch of these few spare circulars was the
means of transforming the meeting from a local to a national
Conference, and that, too, one of unusual weight. That
result had not been contemplated by any human mind. Mr.
Booth shared my surprise and pleasure.
On the Sunday before the Conference I spoke to the men
of the P.S.A. about its enlarged importance, and asked all of
them who believed in prayer to pray that it might be guided
and blessed of God.
So encompassed by an atmosphere of prayer, the first Con-
ference came into being.
B.— SEVEN CONFERENCES AT STRATEGIC
CENTRES
CHAPTER VI
A CONFERENCE OF SURPRISES
The evening of the 13th was cold and dark and misty.
But its cheerlessness did not keep away the distant visitors.
The list of those present is given below. All told they did
not number forty. But they represented more than a quarter
of a million of Trade Unionists — the very flower of British
Labour. And, as will be seen, they stood for the most
diverse parties and schools and grades.
I ought here to recall that in 1898 the British Labour world
was in a most unhappy state of division and reciprocal
antagonism. An International Labour Congress which had
been held in London during the previous July had turned into
something perilously like a bear-garden, and was finally
broken up in disorder.* And British Labour has shared in
* An incident of this International Congress may here be noted. It had invited
men of all schools and parties and churches to unite in a Peace Demonstration in
Hyde Park. Eager to promote international accord in this matter, I helped to
organize a local committee, and spoke at several working men's meetings in
London, urging them to demonstrate. Just two days before the demonstration,
the central committee which had invited all varieties of opinion to join, issued
resolutions of such a character that none but extreme Socialists could conscientiously
vote for them. I was naturally disgusted at this breach of faith, and expressed
my disgust in the leading London newspapers. It was then too late to change
arrangements, so I advised all to march to the Park, and so declare in favour of
the principle of peace, but to leave before the resolution was put. As it happened,
the elements favoured this arrangement. For no sooner had the demonstration
reached the Park than a thunderstorm burst in full fury and with torrents of rain.
The crowd was at once soaked — and scattered. My outspoken letters had, however,
given no small offence : and I was told that I had shut myself for ever out of the
Labour movement ! At the very time I received this solemn assurance, I had
letters in my pocket from Labour leaders thanking me for voicing the protest they
felt but could not well express. And the close of the year, as reported above, put
the prediction of my permanent exclusion in a yet more humorous light.
19
Quarter of a
million
represented.
2o HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
A new and
unexpected
synthesis.
A startling
letter.
the general disintegration. It was all at sixes and sevens.
But now our little Clayton Hall held representatives of all
these warring sections. They were all together, and all at
peace. The old Unionism was there, and the new. Socialism
was there, and Individualism. Conservative and Liberal and
Radical were all present. Women's unions, as well as the
predominant male groups, were represented.
This juxtaposition of opposites naturally caused no small
amazement. " What! " said M. to me, " B. here? I am
surprised ! " I went over to B. and immediately he ex-
claimed : " What ! M. here? I never thought he would have
come ! ' And so the ripple of astonishment went round, —
with the coffee and tea and cake.
To bring those who have been aloof into touch with each
other is always an agreeable, if often a delicate, task, and it
was good for once to see an epitome of the British Labour
world at one. In fact, when I returned from a visit to the
other hall, where my colleague was holding a Shakespeare
recital, and saw through the side door the whole Conference
sitting together, I said to myself, " Behold the long desired
Labour Party of the future."*
Perhaps the most striking illustration of the new synthesis
was given in one of the letters I read. Everyone knew the
resolute separateness of the Northumberland miners. Every-
one knew how steadfastly they had held aloof from Collectivist
movements. Almost equally well known was the rugged and
redhot Individualism of Ralph Young, their Secretary. And
this was the letter I read, written by Mr. Young on behalf of
the Northumberland Miners' Executive : —
" It was resolved that I should inform you that they
unanimously approved of the object of the Conference. I
was further directed to state that there was considerable
difference of opinion on the Board previous to the passing of
the Workmen's Compensation Act in respect of the principle
of State pensions. Now, however, that this Act has been
passed and large numbers of aged men and others not aged
who are physically weak or have any natural defect about
them are being discharged, and as the dismissals of these
classes of cases will be enormously increased as soon as the
inevitable reaction to the present boom in trade sets in, it
becomes the imperative duty of the State which has been the
cause of their dismissal to make provision to prevent them
from starving. Unless these men are provided for — not only
the aged poor, but the weak and infirm as well, who are being
* This was a true prophecy, as will bejndicated later.
A CONFERENCE OF SURPRISES 21
deprived of earning their living through the Compensation
Act — the Government will be guilty of legal murder."
I rarely read a letter which made a greater sensation. It
was seen to mark a seismic change of public opinion : a sort
of social landslide.
But the great fact of the evening was the presence of The uniting
Charles Booth. He was the central magnet that drew the fact° r «
scattered social particles towards unity. His address welded
them into one.
He began by generously declaring that the attendance of
so many representative men from so many different parts of
the country was one of the greatest honours which had ever
been conferred upon him. And then he proceeded with his
masterly array of arguments. They will be given later, and
their style and presentation and effect will then be described.
Suffice it to say that, watching the meeting as I did from
the chair, I felt it growing into agreement : and in the
discussion which followed I saw plainly that the Conference
was arriving at complete unity of purpose. The original
idea was that, being a Conference, the meeting should not
proceed to resolutions of any kind. But I ventured to formu-
late point after point on which I saw there was agreement.
Finally, with the consent of everyone, I put the whole
series to the meeting, which passed them with absolute
unanimity !
There has been so much effective agreement since, in the The wonder
country and in Parliament, that the present-day reader may ° unanimity,
find it hard to understand the intense surprise with which the
Conference found itself entirely unanimous. The wonder our
guests first felt at finding themselves in the one room was as
nothing to the wonder they now felt at the discovery that
they were all resolutely bent on one great project of reform.
They experienced something of the amazement which may be
supposed to have come over early Church Councils when, as
they believed, a Divine afflatus suddenly swept all their
differences into perfect accord. For here were all the warring
sections of the Labour world : but they were no longer
warring : they were on one great question of one mind and
one heart. What made the wonder greater was that agree-
ment had been reached, not by whittling down differences to
some slender and insignificant point. Rather had all sections
been levelled up to the plane of a simply colossal demand.
Nor was there mere unity of opinion. There was a fervid
and practical unity of purpose.
Then arose the question : —
The unanimity which had so surprised and stirred them
22 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
A new step
mooted.
Who was to
initiate?
Would
Mr. Booth
consent ?
here, why should it not be repeated on a greater scale, and
with definite practical consequences?
Councillor Holmes, of Leicester, was the first to propose
that similar Conferences should be held in other industrial
centres. Mr. Wilkie spoke strongly to the same effect. Both
insisted that Browning Settlement should undertake the work
of organization. And the Conference supported their
suggestions.
As the proceedings continued till a late hour, refreshments
were served again at the close : and again Mr. Holmes and
Mr. Wilkie tackled me, pressing on me to initiate Conferences
elsewhere.
I said to Mr. Wilkie: " Why in the world should I take
on this extra work? I have surely enough to attend to in
Walworth, and in the projected extension of the Settlement
now before us. W T hy don't you undertake it yourself ? You
are the secretary of a National Union, with a network of
organization all over the land. All the ways lie open before
you."
The reply came prompt: "HI were to take up the job,
people would say, 'Hullo! What's Wilkie after now? Does
he want to get into Parliament? Be sure he's some axe of
his own to grind.' But," added Mr. Wilkie, " no one will
ever say you have an axe to grind."
I accepted, with such grace as I could, this compliment to
the general disinterestedness of Settlements, but pointed out
that the essential thing was to secure, not the organizing
person, but the presence of Mr. Booth.
I was asked to urge the request of the Conference on him.
He was then talking with a friend in another part of the
room. At first I found him quite unwilling to accede. The
completion of his book on London Life was weighing on him,
he said. With his other duties, it precluded any idea of a
series of Conferences. I went back to the men with my
negative report. But they would take no refusal. ' Only a
few nights," they said; " ask only a few, if he cannot spare
many."
I went back to Mr. Booth and formulated a definite pro-
posal : " If we could arrange a Conference at Newcastle for
the organized Labour of Northumberland and Durham, at
Leeds for Yorkshire, at Manchester for Lancashire, and at
Birmingham for the Midlands, would you not go to these?
Only four nights out of the whole winter? And," I added,
" if you went, judging by what we have seen to-night, you
would return to London with the whole country at your
back."
A CONFERENCE OF SURPRISES 23
' The chief's eye flashed ' ; then softened : in the end he His Answer.
promised to consider and reply later.
In the event of a favourable answer arriving, I was
entrusted with further arrangements. The Conference dis-
solved in high hope and resolute mood.
Next day Mr. Booth wrote : —
" I have thought over your proposal, and if meetings like
that so successfully held last night under your auspices can
be arranged at the four centres spoken of, I shall be very
glad to attend and do my best to interest the audiences in my
argument as to the provision of Old Age Pensions by the
State.
" It would be understood that the meetings are to be
private, by invitation, of representative working class leaders,
and without reporters. The time has not yet come for public
meetings on this subject."
So turn by turn had gone on the unrolling of the What no man
unexpected. had ex P ected -
No man had expected the local Conference to become a
national one.
No man had expected all sections of the Labour world to
meet in one room in furtherance of one movement.
No man had expected that diverse gathering to arrive at
unanimity on any project of this magnitude.
No man had expected this Conference to lead to other
Conferences in different parts of the land.
None of us designed or arranged all this beforehand.
Who did?
To that question only one answer is possible.
CHAPTER VII
THE SPIRITUAL DYNAMO
The
Fellowship of
Followers.
Pan-denom-
inational.
A concert of
Prayer.
The next night at the Settlement, in the study of the
Characteristics of Jesus, our subject was " His Effluent
Force "; after which was held the monthly meeting of the
Fellowship of Followers.
This Fellowship must now be introduced to the reader.
It is as little seen in the movements that radiate from the
Settlement, and even in some parts of the Settlement itself,
as the great dynamo is seen in the town which it illuminates
and supplies with electric power. It is a company of men
and women, young men and maidens, mostly drawn from the
humblest ranks of society, who have subscribed a roll at the
head of which stand the words, "Jesus said, If any man
would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow Me. Meaning so to follow Him, we desire
to be enrolled in the Fellowship of Followers."
Inscribing one's name in this roll in the presence of the
Fellowship is the only form of confession and initiation
required. The first to express a wish to sign was a Roman
Catholic. The list of members includes Anglicans, Presby-
terians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers
and persons of no ecclesiastical connection. A Church lays
claim to be fellowship and government in one. The Fellow-
ship lays no claim to government, and so compromises no
denominational loyalty. It is the true expression of the pan-
denominational life of the Settlement. In some respects it
offers in the religious sphere a suggestive counterpart to what
our Conferences are in the civic sphere. Often at that time
a mere handful of earnest souls, it was, as it is, the very
heart of the Settlement.
To the prayers of this Fellowship the social movements
which have become the special care of the Settlement are
from time to time commended. The Pensions movement, as
it was now being reopened amongst us, was from the first
laid upon the intercessory conscience of the Fellowship. At
24
THE SPIRITUAL DYNAMO
25
each meeting of the Fellowship during this winter I used to
report, " A Conference on Old Age Pensions is to be held at
such a place on such a date, and I ask the Fellowship to
pray every day and especially on that day that the Conference
may be guided aright and arrive at complete unity of purpose. "
A 1 the Men's Meeting preceding each Conference, I made the
same request.
The Fellowship has proved to us in the most personal and Distance
intimate way that distance has practically no existence for vanquished,
souls that are embosomed in the One Life : and the proof has
been clearest in what we call help-seeking thought. Often
and often, during these and other Conferences, in peculiarly
anxious moments I have felt come billowing around me the
prayer force of the Fellowship ; and from that instant perilous
differences have disappeared ; unity has emerged ; and in the
end entire unanimity has reigned.
The report of these results of concentrated prayer naturally
deepened the concentration. With thanks and with boldness
and with awe we pressed for further answers : and received
them.
Prayer, and concerted prayer, have been the most effective The best
weapons in the whole armoury of our agitation. The rest s° cia '
are swords and bayonets ; prayer is the magazine rifle.
I speak that I do know.
I have had some experience of social engineering. I ought
to be able to estimate the relative magnitude of social and
political forces, and to form some conception of their respective
effectiveness. In the complex social machinery around me,
I have pulled lever after lever, and noted the results. I have
pulled the lever of prayer ; and I have found the most remark-
able results of all. I have seen, too, that all the other results
are then deepened and combined into a completer efficiency.
This is no fancy of cloistered meditation. It is a simple
statement of fact, as found in public meeting and private
interview, in lobby and newspaper office, in Labour Confer-
ence and Parliamentary debate, as also in all the swirl of
up-to-date agitation and electioneering.
As an engineer I make report on the social dynamic
available.
" I report as a man may of God's work."
dynamic.
CHAPTER VIII
SENDING ROUND THE FIERY CROSS
The Mandate
clear.
The men to
act as
Conveners.
The directing Purpose had now begun to declare Itself.
It was bent not merely on an effective Sunday afternoon, or
on a local Conference, or on one national Conference. It was
manifestly developing something much larger and more far-
reaching.
We were not now stumbling on from step to step in the
darkness. We could see a bit of the path marked out before
us. There were Conferences to organize at the four greatest
centres of English provincial life. So much was clear.
The Mandate which was involved for me I could only
accept with reverence and joy and a rush of new energy.
I was beginning to understand now .
And one's ordinary mundane faculties could now be turned
to account. The Initiative once received, it was compara-
tively easy to descend to the executive details.
The first thing was to secure as Convener of each local
Conference someone on the spot.
No one commanded the mind of Labour in Northumberland
and Durham like my good old friend, the universally
respected Mr. Thomas Burt. He kindly agreed to act as
Chairman, and Mr. Wilkie similarly accepted the office of
Convener. So the Newcastle Conference was in safe hands.
Mr. Connellan, who was present on the 13th, and was
in touch with all the Trades Councils of Yorkshire, stood
sponsor for the Leeds Conference. Mr. Chandler, who had
come up from Manchester, and to whom I had naturally first
turned, recommended Mr. G. D. Kelley, secretary to the
Yorkshire Federation of Trades Councils, and Mr. Kelley
consented to organize the Manchester meeting. In the
Midlands there was no more universally recognized leader of
Labour in all good movements than Mr. George Cadbury.
The reluctance of a busy man to add to his responsibilities
was at last overcome. Mr. Cadbury, whose sympathies were
with us from the first, agreed to " arrange " for the convening
26
SENDING ROUND THE FIERY CROSS
27
of the Birmingham meeting. So by the end of the year all
four Conferences were in train.
Publicity of the ordinary kind we had agreed to avoid, but The convening
as it was our intention to saturate the mind of organized statement.
Labour with our project, printed matter of some kind was
necessary. Accordingly we printed the following confidential
statement of proceedings at the first Conference. By the
request and aid of its members, some 3,000 copies were
distributed among branches of their Unions throughout the
country.
CONFIDENTIAL.
Browning Settlement,
82, Camberwell Road, S.E.
December 30^2, 1898.
CONFERENCE ON OLD AGE PENSIONS.
Dear Sir, — A Conference on Old Age Pensions was held
in Robert Browning Hall, Walworth, South London, on
Tuesday evening, December 13th, when leading representa-
tives of Trade Unions numbering over a quarter of a
million members came, at the invitation of the Settlement,
to confer with Mr. Charles Booth.
The following list contains the names of most of those
present, and of the societies they represented : —
UNION
Engineers, Amalgamated Society of
Carpenters and Joiners, Amalgamated
Society of ...
Gas Workers and General Labourers,
National Union of ...
National Hosiery and Dyers Federation
Iron Founders, Friendly Society of
(England, Ireland, and Wales)
Associated Shipwrights' Society...
Operative Plasterers, National Associa
tion of
London Cabdrivers' Trade Union
United Builders Labourers' Union
Shop Assistants, National Union of
Workers' Union .. .
Clerks, National Union of
Women Workers, National Union of
Smiths' and Fitters' Union
Alliance and Furnishing Trade Assn.
(West End No. 2)
TOTAL MEMBERS OF TRADE UNIONS
of which numbers are given.
REPRESENTATIVE.
MEMBERS.
Geo. N. Barnes, Sec.
85,000
James Kidd
Benj. Wright
F. Chandler, J.P., Sec.
... 57,000
J. Sansom ...
42,000
Councillor Holmes, Sec.
20,000
J. Maddison, Sec. ...
... 17,269
S. Masterson
... A. Wilkie, Sec.
... 15,084
John Lamb ...
... 11,430
... E. T. Mendell
6,850
W. Stevenson, Sec. ...
6,550
James Macpherson, Sec.
2,750
Margaret G. Bondfield
T. Chambers, Sec. ...
... 2,381
... A. J. Collett
Emily Janes, Sec.
F. W. Newman
D. Evans
266,314
2 8 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
TRADE* COUNCIL. REPRESENTATIVE. MEMBERS.
London Trades Council ... ... James Macdonald, Sec. ... 52,134
Bristol Trades Council... ... ... F. Sheppard. . . ... ... 30,000
Hull Trades Council ... ... ... Councillor Millington, Pres. 15,000
Leeds and District Trades Council ... Councillor O. Connellan, Sec. 13,500
TOTAL TRADES COUNCILS 110,634
Charles Booth, D.Sc.
Fredk. Maddison, M.P.
Will Crooks, L.C.C.
G. W. Richards, M.D., M.R.C.S.
Tom Bryan, M.A.
F. Butler
T. Holding
W. Wot man.
Henrietta Jastrow, Berlin.
F. Herbert Stead, M.A., Chairman.
Mr. Thos. Burt, M.P., and Mr. John Burns, M.P., wrote
regretting their unavoidable absence. The Executive of the
Northumberland Miners' Mutual Confident Association, by
their Secretary, Mr. R. Young, wrote that they unanimously
approved of the object of the Conference, their former differ-
ence of opinion on the subject having been removed by the
effects of the new Workmen's Compensation Act.
Mr. Booth first explained the principles on which any
satisfactory system of Old Age Pensions must, in his judg-
ment, be based. The most essential were (i) that all old
persons should be entitled to benefit, and (2) that all should,
through taxation, contribute to the cost. He then dealt with
objections to his proposals, and answered questions. A
general discussion ensued, in which Mr. G. N. Barnes, Miss
Bondfield, Mr. Connellan, Mr. Crooks, Mr. F. Maddison,
Mr. Macpherson, Mr. Masterson, Mr. Wilkie, Mr. Shep-
pard, Mr. Collctt, Mr. Holmes, Mr. Stevenson, Mr. Lamb,
Mr. Macdonald, and others took part.
The proceedings were marked with great unanimity. The
Conference gave its general and hearty support to the
principles set forth by Mr. Booth.
It unanimously approved the idea of a universal and non-
contributory system of Old Age Pensions. This, it was
pointed out, would not involve any governmental inter-
ference with Trade Unions or supervision of them.
All contributory schemes were held to be incomplete and
unsatisfactory. They would not, it was maintained, cover the
most necessitous cases, and they would tend to take away the
independence of Trade Unions.
The financial question was pronounced to be a question
apart. The Conference held that the necessary funds should
SENDING ROUND THE FIERY CROSS 29
be derived, not from any special taxation, but from the
general sources of national revenue. It held, too, that the
nation was well able to afford the amount required.
It was strongly of opinion that the suggested system of
universal Pensions would prove not a deterrent, but an
incentive to thrift, and that Trade Unions and other thrift
societies would be thereby benefited. The receiving of such
a Pension was felt to involve no loss of self-respect.
There was a general and an emphatic expression of opinion
in favour of 60 as the age at which the payment of Pensions
would most justly begin. With this view Mr. Booth did not
agree.
The suggestion was advanced and well received that
members of the Conference should endeavour to promote
similar meetings in their respective unions, councils, or
neighbourhoods. Mr. Booth kindly promised to consider the
request that he would meet gatherings of representatives of
Trade Unions, Friendly Societies and Co-operative Societies
in a few of the chief provincial centres of industry.
It is suggested that such Conferences might in each case
form an Old Age Pensions Committee to promote discussion
of the question and to put itself into communication — for
convenience' sake through the undersigned — with the
Browning Hall Conference, the members of which may be
regarded as a provisional central committee.
It is especially desired that no publicity be given to these
proceedings.
I am, yours faithfully,
F. HERBERT STEAD, Warden.
CHAPTER IX
THE CONVINCING AND CONVERTING
" ARGUMENT "
The prime The first place in this movement belongs, as has been
human agent, shown, to the Unseen Factor.
Now it properly falls to speak of the prime agent through
whom the Purpose realised itself.
Of Charles Booth, head of the great Atlantic shipping firm
of Booth Brothers, Liverpool, Doctor of Science of Cambridge
University, Privy Councillor, and author of the monumental
work of seventeen volumes on " The Life and Labour of the
People in London," no general account need here be given.
His record is engraved imperishably in the annals of social
science and of social progress.
But of the way in which this genius of the first order
operated in the movement now under survey, there must be
some attempt at a description here.
The artificer of " have been asked again and again, How did it come to
unity. pass that in the assemblies composed of the most widely
divergent schools of thought and grades of information,
unanimity always followed Mr. Booth's exposition of the
case? Of the dynamic Influence which works unseen, I could
not then speak ; but I could say somewhat of the human
agency. Let me repeat what I said at the time : —
The convincing, even the converting, power of his speech
has been proved in every one of the Conferences he has
addressed. At the close of the first, one of the gravest of
men, the responsible head of one of the strongest and
wealthiest trade unions — a poor law guardian and a justice
of the peace to boot — turned to me and said, "I came here in
doubt about the whole subject. I go back to my centre a
convert — nay more, a missionary in the cause."
A complete stranger to the personnel of these gatherings,
knowing only that Trade Unionists were being spoken to
about free Pensions for all the aged, might naturally jump to
the conclusion that the enthusiastic agreement arrived at was
30
CONVINCING AND CONVERTING ARGUMENT 31
attained by the usual arts of the demagogue : harrowing
pictures of aged destitution, glowing dreams of universal
plenty, inflammatory invective against the opulent classes,
and seductive appeals to a credulous cupidity. Such a thing
is only worth mentioning because of its absurdly ludicrous
inversion of the fact.
In Mr. Booth's statement of his case there are no appeals Aluminous
to passion. Neither word nor gesture is allowed to indicate teacher '
strong emotion. Declamation is entirely absent. There is
no hint of " eloquence " or of laboured climax. The per-
suasiveness is the persuasiveness of logical arrangement, of
transparent clearness, and of luminous sincerity.
The style is not what you associate with the idea of a social
reformer proffering a remedy for some burning grievance.
It is rather the style of a professor of mathematics demon-
strating to his pupils the solution of some problem in algebra
or geometry. Mr. Booth is innocent of all trace of " don-
nishness " or academic " side " ; yet the nearest analogy to
his Conferences is to be found not in Parliament or Town's
meeting, but in the college classroom.
Before Mr. Booth has spoken five minutes, the relation is Labour
established of professor and students. They are students Leaders as
any teacher might covet — hard-headed Labour leaders, ""d 61 " 8,
veterans of industrial warfare, graduates in the stern school
of reality, yet men enough to sit humbly and receptively at
the feet of the expert.
Anyone in doubt about the future of British Labour need
only to have seen these Conferences to be reassured. When
the leaders display such readiness to learn from competent
authority, the rank and file will not go far astray. No
specialist in a German University could show more profound
reverence for the man who knows than do these " duly
accredited representatives " of our working classes.
Their confidence is inevitably increased by the teacher's A moulder of
rare gifts of exposition. As one of them said : " When Mr. mm<1 '
Booth speaks, you do not think of what he says or how he
says it: you see the thing itself grow before you." As a
consequence they end by finding his conclusions engraved on
their minds with a sort of intrinsic inevitableness.
Perhaps Mr. Booth's addresses may best be described
as a superlative series of University Extension Lectures in
Sociology. The resemblance is further borne out by the
printed notes or outline of his lecture which he puts into the
hands of his hearers, and to which he refers them point bv
point, number by number, as he proceeds. Is not this indeed
a new kind of political propaganda?
32 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Here is a copy of the " Notes of Mr. Booth's Argument "
which is headed, " Endowment of Old Age " : —
Endowment of Old Age.
Notes of Mr. C. Booth's argument.
" i. — There is now a practical agreement as to the facts.
The deplorable extent of poverty in old age is admitted by all.
Pauperism is only one symptom of it.
" 2. — It is also recognised that the old are industrially at
an increasing disadvantage, so that they do not, except
indirectly, share in the general prosperity.
" 3. — The ideal condition in old age must provide for —
(a) Comfort.
(b) Independence.
(c) The power to give, as well as to receive.
" 4. — The maintenance of the old is now drawn from the
following sources : —
(a) Accumulations (inherited or saved).
(b) Present earnings.
(c) Deferred payment for work done in the past.
(d) Insurance.
(e) Assistance from children.
(/) Charitable aid.
(g) Poor Law relief.
" 5. — All these, together, are acknowledged in very many
cases to be insufficient : the last two are undesirable, and
assistance from children is now often pressed too hard.
" 6. — Problem — while increasing the whole sum, to
dispense with the undesirable sources.
" 7. — Any possible contribution of the State is only a small
item in the total required.
" 8. — Contributory schemes are ruled out —
(a) Because they necessarily interfere with existing
thrift agencies.
(b) Because they hardly provide at all for women or
the poorest classes.
(c) Because they (in any case) offer no benefit for a
generation to come.
" 9. — The Essentials of a non-contributory scheme
(such as I favour) are —
(a) Cost to be borne by general taxation.
(b) Benefits to be for all who claim them.
" 10. — I hold that assistance from the State, under these
conditions —
(a) Would not check, but rather stimulate the
accumulation of property by the people.
CONVINCING AND CONVERTING ARGUMENT 33
(b) That it would not materially affect the chances
of earnings by the old ; nor rates of wages generally.
(c) That deferred earnings would not be interfered
with, and that small industrial or friendly endowments
would be encouraged.
(d) That insurance would still be needed, and its
provision be facilitated.
(e) That help from children would continue to be
given.
(/) That charity would be less needed, and begging
become less fraudulent.
(g) That the Poor Law might be reformed, and out-
relief abolished.
" 11. — I propose to discuss these seven points and to con-
sider the objections that may be raised."
The address based on these notes naturally varied some- Mr. Booth's
what according to the varying environment in which they address,
were uttered. It may best be represented here by the verbatim
report of Mr. Booth's speech at the last of the seven
Conferences : —
" Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I do not propose to-day Ho scheme.
to lay before you any cut-and-dried scheme with regard to
Old Age Pensions. In fact, my position on this subject has
been, quite naturally, a little misunderstood, and I should like
to make it clear before I go on to do what I mean to do ; that
is, to lay before you an argument. Some seven years ago,
when my attention was first directed to this subject, there
were a number of schemes before the public, and to one of
these my mind was particularly directed ; partly, perhaps, by
its audacity, and partly by the logic — a perfect kind of logic
in its way — which it has. I began to think out what other
people had suggested with regard to a complete or universal
scheme of Old Age Pensions, and the more I looked into it,
the more its good points came out, and the more the bad
points of the other contributory schemes, its rivals, stood
out also. So that I do commit myself so far as to formulate
an argument in its favour. I do not mean to formulate a
scheme, and I have always been of opinion that the theory
had to be accepted before it could be put into practice, and
that the final scheme would not be the result of this man's or
that man's efforts, but of many minds being brought to bear
upon an important subject. (Applause.)
"The history of the inquiry was, as you know, that the The Royal
Government of the day appointed a Royal Commission. Commission.
Satisfied that there was need for investigation, they chose a
34 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Lord
Rothschild's
Committee.
Agreement
on facts.
number of men — chose them very well, I think — and a very
influential and important Commission, presided over by Lord
Aberdare, was the result. I had the honour of sitting on that
Commission, and we pursued the inquiry for two or three
years, and finally produced a report. We gathered together
an immense amount of information and evidence — exhaustive
information and evidence — but in reporting we could not
agree. It was not to be expected, perhaps, that we should,
because the Commission had been expressly chosen for their
divergence of views to begin with. (Laughter.) It would
have been almost impossible to have convinced each other ;
but, we did do this : having all these divergent views repre-
sented on the Commission we pretty nearly exhausted the
subject. The evidence taken before that Commission is an
excellent and invaluable piece of work ; but the Commission
finally could agree practically upon one thing only, and
that was that the subject was extremely serious, and that the
final discussion ought to be handed over to another body,
but not of so many persons, that should be appointed
especially with a view of finding a practical solution.
" That resolution was accepted and taken up by the present
Government, and a smaller body was appointed, a body of
experts, presided over by Lord Rothschild. It was called the
Lord Rothschild Committee. They pursued their inquiry for
about two years, and they issued their report last autumn.
Thev did not differ amongst themselves, but they failed to
find any solution. One reason why, I think, they did not find
a solution was that they read into their reference a meaning
which Mr. Chamberlain has said was not the meaning that he
intended it to have, namely, the exclusion of all except con-
tributory schemes. But at any rate, the contributory schemes
— those schemes to which the ultimate recipient would have
contributed — were thoroughly considered and discussed by
this Committee and rejected. Schemes to which my argu-
ment is directed were not brought before that Committee
at all.
" Well, 1 will now proceed to lay before you the same
argument that convinced me. There has been distributed
amongst you a leaflet which gives a brief summary of this
argument. I regret 1 did not provide a greater number so
that everyone here might have had a copy, but I will, at any
rate, take care in what I say to supply what is needed so
thai no one in the audience will, I hope, lose the track of what
I have to say. As I go along I will read each note, and the
first note is : ' There is now a practical agreement as to the
facts. The deplorable extent of poverty in old age is admitted
CONVINCING AND CONVERTING ARGUMENT 35
by all. Pauperism is only one symptom of it. ' This is a
rather singular position for a great public question. That
the facts are universally admitted is due to the excellent work
of the two bodies, the Commission and the Committee, that
I have mentioned.
"They have shown us statistically and by clear evidence Mass of aged
what, after all, we most of us know from our own experience ^ ove y *
of the facts around us : that the amount of poverty in old age
is very, very great; that earnings break down, and that
savings are exhausted, and that some time between 60 and 70
a very large proportion of the old people are in need of some
kind of help, are not independent, either come for help to
the Poor Law or are supported and helped by their friends or
by charity. This large proportion of something like a third
of the old people with regard to the Poor Law, and, of course,
an additional number of those who don't come upon the Poor
Law, but are nevertheless equally or nearly equally poor — this
very large proportion is the startling fact that was brought
out absolutely by these inquiries, and is now agreed to; and
I don't think there is any difference of opinion at all on that
question, nor on the point that pauperism is only one symptom
— a symptom we can most easily diagnose, but only one
symptom — of the trouble.
" It is also recognised — this is my second point — it is also Age at a
recognised that the old are industrially at an increasing g r °wmg
i-i /1 iv 111 disadvantage.
disadvantage — (near, hear) — so that they do not, except
indirectly, share in the general prosperity. That idea is more
recent. It has only gradually crept into our consciousness
that that is so; that, in spite of — in fact, in consequence of —
certain points which make for our prosperity, the old have a
bad time. (Hear, hear.) Industry is driven harder. We are
more and more concentrating the efforts of industry on the
picked years of life. (Hear, hear.) We are shortening that
industrial life at both ends. Quite right in regard to the
children, but perforce we are also shortening it at the other
end. Our old men are hardly old, but they have not got the
nerve to do the kind of work which modern industrial methods
demand — (hear, hear) — and further the difficulty is not one
which is slipping away, which is gradually decreasing, gradu-
ally coming to an end. However bad things are, if we can
feel that they are steadily and naturally improving we may
be patient ; but when we cannot feel with certainty that
there is any such improvement, for that which the old enjoy
is only what they share in an indirect way from the general
rise in the standard of life, and is counterbalanced by what
they naturally lose, it is not a satisfactory situation. (No,
36 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
The ideal old
age.
Youth and age
in upper
classes.
Among the
poor.
no.) And therefore it is that I still feel impressed, and more
than ever impressed with the necessity of this question being
dealt with.
" Well then I will say that the ideal condition in old age —
I think it important to lay out some kind of an ideal as to
what it is we are aiming towards when we speak of providing
for old age — should be in some way provided for. I am not
talking of what a pension would provide : far from it ; but
the condition without which we should not be satisfied with
regard to our own old people or any old people if they had
not the opportunity of attaining to it. And the first condition
is that of comfort, physical, bodily comfort, the comfort of
warmth, the comfort of roof, the comfort of fire, the comfort
of chairs, the comfort in which an old person should live.
Secondly, there is independence, and that is mental comfort —
(applause) — and thirdly — it is only after all a description to
some extent of what I mean by independence — I think there
should be the power to give as well as to receive. I do not
think any are in a satisfactory condition in old age if they
have to depend absolutely on their children. I think there
should be mutual dependence and mutual recognition.
" And here I might say that in England we have curiously
two perfectly distinct ideals in the different classes. In the
upper classes, the richest classes, the young depend entirely
upon the old. (Laughter and applause.) I do not say that
it is a bad system at all — what I say is that it is the ideal on
which the upper structures, the rich and the highest classes,
in England order their lives. The young people are not only
brought up as children and educated — and their education is
prolonged — but they are maintained bv an allowance, which
is increased, as necessary, according to their circumstances —
when they marry and have children, and so on ; and finally
they in due time step into the shoes of their parents, and
become holders and distributors of the wealth of that class.
This system is recognised and arranged by trust deeds, and
so on, and as I say, it does not work at all badly, and you
have excellent family relations under it.
" But what a contrast it is with regard to the quite poor,
where it is absolutely the opposite after infancy and child-
hood. The children are brought into the world and taken
care of by their parents up till the end of school age. When
that time comes the child is at once independent as to earn-
ings, and an important contributor to the family income.
(Hear, hear.) And as life goes on little by little the position
as to wealth is reversed from what it is in the upper classes,
and the old become more and more, and perhaps entirely,
CONVINCING AND CONVERTING ARGUMENT 37
dependent upon their children or grandchildren. But with
the masses of the population, with this huge thing we call
the middle class, there is a middle position : the old help the
young, the young help the old, and there I believe you have
the best and soundest system of family life. (Applause.)
" The maintenance of the old is now drawn from the
following sources : First, there are the accumulations, either
inherited or saved — accumulated property. Secondly, there
is insurance, which is another form of accumulated property ;
and thirdly, there are industrial pensions of one kind or
another, which are payments for work done in the past, and
in a sense are also accumulated property. Then there come
the present earnings, and the present earnings hold a very
considerable place, especially in country districts where the
old are able to work longer than in the towns. Everywhere
a good deal is undoubtedly still earned in old age. Then
there come the three doubtful sources : First there is the
assistance from children, which in my opinion is often pressed
too hard ; and secondly there is charitable aid, which, though
very good in its way, is not a desirable source of support.
(Hear, hear.) Finally there is the Poor Law relief, which,
excepting in the form of sick asylums, is entirely bad.
(Applause.)
" Now the problem which I lay before you is how, while
increasing the whole sum, to dispense with the undesirable
sources ; and I would say, as I have already hinted, that any
possible contribution of the State could only be an item, and
probably a small item, in the total required for such a life in
old age as I have named as an ideal life.
' Well then, the contributory schemes I will consider first.
The contributory schemes were condemned by Lord Roths-
child's Committee. Contributory schemes are those in which
contributions are made by or collected from the individuals
who will ultimately obtain the benefit of the pensions, and
they are ruled out first because they necessarily interfere with
existing thrift agencies. It is impossible to conceive any
plan by which contributions can be drawn from the masses
of the people alongside of Friendly Society contributions
without interfering with the Friendly Societies ; nor could the
Government enter into a sort of partnership with the Friendly
Societies without in some way interfering with them, which is
not only undesirable but would never be accepted.
' Secondly, because they hardly provide at all for the
women or for the poorest classes. Women can hardly be
expected to become and maintain themselves members of
Friendly Societies to any great extent — at any rate their
How the old
are kept
Contributory
schemes
meddle v/ith
thrift agencies,
leave out
women
38 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
and offer no
help till long
after.
A non-
contributory
scheme.
From general
taxation.
For all by all.
numbers in Friendly Societies are extremely small. Were
we to adopt a scheme and leave out the quite poorest class,
and especially those sad cases where ill-health from early life
has made it almost impossible for them to be accepted as
members of Friendly Societies — and quite impossible for
them to earn large wages — such cases are not at all infre-
quent, and are amongst the hardest blows of fate — we should
indeed be making a cruel mistake.
1 The third reason is because they in any case offer no
benefit for a generation to come, and that is crushing because
a contributory scheme cannot be begun when a man is already
old. \ ou all know how essential it is to get members young,
to get a long period of subscriptions, to get the accumulated
interest that makes any provision for the future possible. It
is for these three reasons that the contributory schemes are
completely ruled out.
" So now I pass to the essentials of a non-contributory
scheme, such as I favour. Now, it is possible to have a non-
contributory partial scheme ; that is to say, you may pick out
some particular class and benefit it, and not the others. That
evidently has grave disadvantages unless it be taken in piece-
meal fashion, merely to enable the financial difficulty to be met
bit by bit. That is the only way in which, I think, a piecemeal
scheme can be looked upon as tenable, because otherwise
there would be an inherent injustice in it. And so it seems to
me that the essentials of a non-contributorv scheme are, first,
that the cost be borne by general taxation- — that is to get rid
of all attempts to collect money week by week and to get rid
of all the complications of huge accumulated sums, and
endless, complicated, and costly book-keeping.
" Secondly, the benefits in any scheme that is to be at all
complete or desirable must be for all who claim them. (Hear,
hear.) Now, I do not want to say that I think it necessary
that everyone should claim them any more than it is necessary
for everyone to send their children to the elementary schools.
I think a parallel may very properly be drawn from the
position there. Hut what I want to lay before you is the
principle that all should pay by taxation and all have a right
to benefit. (Applause.) And I do not wish to earmark any
particular source of revenue for this purpose at all. Let us
consider it as money spent for the general welfare of the
people, just as you do for any other national need ; let us pay
our share in the same way that we do for the defence of the
country, or the same as we do for education, or for any
other of the great purposes for which revenue is raised ; and
let the principles of taxation be a separate question properly
CONVINCING AND CONVERTING ARGUMENT 39
considered for all these subjects, and specially considered for
this one.
" The following points are those which appear to me to Seven objec-
embrace the difficulties of this scheme, and I will first read ticns mct «
them, and then discuss them. I maintain that assistance
from the State under these conditions would not check, but
rather stimulate, the accumulation of property by the people ;
that insurance would still be needed, and its provision be
facilitated ; that industrial pensions would not be interfered
with, and that small industrial and friendly endowments would
still be encouraged ; that it would not materially affect the
chances of earnings by the old, nor rates of wages generally ;
that help from children would continue to be given ; that
charity would be less needed, and begging become less
fraudulent; and that the Poor Law might be reformed, and
out-relief abolished. Now, I believe that in these seven points
I shall cover all the objections that are raised to this scheme,
or nearly all ; but if any fresh objections are raised in the
audience, I will do my best to answer them.
' Eirst, with regard to its effect upon the accumulation of Discourage
property. It is said, shortly, that this scheme is a scheme n '
for the discouraging of thrift. (Laughter.) That sentence
was actually printed in the appendix to the report of the
Rothschild Committee. Now, gentlemen, I claim that it
would do nothing of the kind. (Hear, hear.) Savings are
not influenced to any appreciable extent by the fear of a
destitute old age. I do not think we could find an instance
of this if we look around us among the people we know.
Savings are largely made, and most largely made, by those
who no longer have any fear at all of destitution. I do not
say that the fear of immediate destitution is not a very great
force in making people work in the present. There are men
who really can hardly nerve themselves to work unless they
are obliged to do it because they need the money. (Laughter
and applause.) But these men would not save for fear they
should be destitute at some unknown time. They all say the
same thing: ' I should be dead a long time before that.'
(Renewed laughter.) They do not believe they will live, for
one thing. If they begin to save it is for something far more
definite and immediate. They save for pleasure ; they save
for the summer holiday ; they save by provident banks, and
so on, and have a nice sum coming in for the winter for new
clothes, or whatever it is they desire. There is a great deal
of temporary saving, if that is saving. I know they will save
for immediate objects, for trade purposes, to get a little
capital together for the stock they need ; or they will save for
4o HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Hope, not fear,
the motive.
Will insurance
suffer ?
security, to get a nest egg, to get some money in the bank
that they will not be at the absolute mercy of the fear of being
thrown out of work at some time. There are savings of all
kinds, but the actual saving for old age is a very rare thing,
and therefore I don't think that the taking away of the dread
of poverty and destitution in old age will decrease these
savings.
' On the other hand it will increase them, I think. I will
tell you why. It is not despair or fear that makes people
save, but hope. And this would add an element of hope ; it
would take away the fear, the almost certainty, that if these
people do live they will have to go on the Poor Law. And
then there would be something to save towards if a man is
sure that if he gets old he will have a certain income — not
quite enough to live on, and certainly not enough to live on
comfortably. Then there will be some object in looking
forward to old age. Now if he saves there is the haunting
fear that the savings will be dispersed, that they will go ; but
if he had the certainty that a small fixed income would begin
at a certain age there would be in the fact an impetus to
increase it — to make a possibly bare existence into a certain
one and possibly a comfortable one. I believe, therefore, that
this plan would not check but would stimulate the accumula-
tion of property and would make people more careful, more
steady, more thrifty, more ready to look forward to the
future.
" Insurance would still be needed, and its provision facili-
tated. There again, it seems a common argument to assume
that 5s. a week at a certain age, 65, or whatever it might be,
would take away the necessity for any form of insurance.
Surely that would not be so. What people mostly insure
against now is sickness and the funeral money, and that form
of insurance would be far more complete if they knew that
when a certain time came they would get a small pension in
place of or in addition to the sick allowance. The Friendly
Societies, as you all know, have taken an extremely liberal
view of their responsibilities. They have prolonged, and
continually do prolong, sick allowance, so that it practically
becomes an old age pension. (Hear, hear, and applause.)
They do not bargain to do this ; they do it from a very natural,
and also a very generous sentiment ; but, if they could take
into account the fact that there would be at a certain age an
old age allowance coming in, they could make their scales
much more liberal, and above all, much more solvent. There
would be far less of insolvency and of lapses.
" Insurances would be encouraged and facilitated, and
CONVINCING AND CONVERTING ARGUMENT 41
Existing
Pensions ?
there would, too, be a great effort made, I think, to provide Just before
for the years immediately preceding the time when pensions pension?
would be granted. At whatever age the pensions are fixed
there will be some years of difficulty preceding. I feel per-
fectly sure in my own mind that we should not attain — and I
do not think it desirable that we should attain — pensions at
the earliest age at which men break down under the stress of
industry ; partly because some men break down sooner than
others, and men break down sooner in some trades than in
others, and one must fix a general rule, and also because it
would be far more likely to be a difficulty with regard to
wages.
" My third point is that industrial pensions would not be
interfered with, and that small industrial or friendly endow-
ments would still be encouraged. There are two classes to
which this applies. There are cases in which the pension is,
as it were, bargained for, or taken into consideration, as with
the police or the army or navy, when a man presumably takes
a lower wage with the idea of ultimately getting a pension.
It would be altogether unfair to attack that in any way, or
to interfere with it in any way. It has been part of the
bargain under which the man has done his work, and he has
a right to it. If it became certain the man would not get a
pension from the State, the system would be altered, and he
would get more wages. That class of pensions would not be
affected at all.
"But there is another class of pensions that were not Old servants?
bargained for but have been granted to old servants as a
recognition of work done in the past. It is not exactly a
charity ; it may be partly a charity, but it is owing more to a
sense of justice and gratitude on the part of the employer for
the old servant — a feeling that he would not like to see that
old servant in distress in his old age. Certainly a number of
kindly pensions of that sort are granted, or work is provided
suitable for the old people to do, not so much with regard to
its economic value as to keep the old people going. Now, I
don't think that these would suffer either. It is not an
important matter, but it has been disputed and I therefore
mention it. If an employer knows his old servant will get a
pension from the State why should he give him one? the
question was asked. It is quite true ; that may be the case ;
but I think it would often facilitate matters. Many an
employer feels that he can't give a pension because it would
spread over too long a time. But if the time were shortened
between the accident or the breakdown, and a State pension
were receivable at a certain age, he would say, ' I will pay
42 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
the pension until it comes in,' and the man would get a
pension when he wants it, and the Government pension later
on, when if he did not get the pension at once it would be
almost too late. Therefore I think that these pensions would
not be interfered with, but on the whole stimulated by such
a scheme as I favour.
" Now comes the really serious crux, and that is the
question of wages. It has been confidently stated by many
that pensions would come indirectly off wages, that, for
amounts paid in this way by the State, wages would be
reduced ; that it would be a rate-in-aid of wages, as is said.
That is a very serious charge and one which demands very
serious consideration and discussion. I take one comfort
from the way in which it has been discussed, so far, and that
is that those who lay most stress upon this and say that
pensions will sap the manhood of the English race, and that
it would be entirely taken off their wages and is a regular
pauperising influence, and so on ; also attack the scheme from
the altogether opposite, and I think inconsistent ground,
that it is a terrible Socialistic measure, transferring the
wealth from the rich to the poor. (Laughter.) Now if the
poor man is going to pay for it out of his wages, the second
objection does not apply. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) How-
ever, let us consider the thing on its merits, because it is a
very serious question.
Wages raised, " First, in regard to the old — those who are presumably all
rather. ; n receipt of this pension. They would not compete with each
other. You do occasionally have cases in which old people
take starvation wages, not expecting or intending to live on
what they earn but using it merely to eke out what they
receive from other sources. It is held to be a hardship on
those who are striving to live independent lives, that rates of
pay should be dragged down by these subsidised people, but
that would not apply if they all had it. Then would the fact
that everybody has this little advantage cause them to work
cheaper? I do not think it would. I think, on the contrary,
in many cases it would have an opposite effect, and that they
would be in a stronger position to hold out for proper rates
of pay, and in addition I feel we may trust a good deal to the
Trade Unions to maintain the position. But in one way or
another I do not think the old people would suffer materially,
or that it is a matter which deserves any very great considera-
tion. Then it is said that competition would arise between
those who are just below and those who are just above pen-
sion age. I think that theoretically is true, but I do not think
that practically it would have any great effect. If you have
CONVINCING AND CONVERTING ARGUMENT 43
now the men who have reached 65, and who have laid by
something, I do not think you will find that as a matter of
fact they do work cheaper than the people who have not got
it. I doubt it very much, but that is a point which I should
very much like to hear discussed.
"And finally, there is the economic argument that the whole A high
rate of wages depends on the cost of existence, and that the economic
cost of existence includes everything from the cradle to the ar £ umen •
grave, and that if you take away from the individual a portion
of this cost of existence towards the end of life he will become
a cheaper person — a person who can be hired cheaper. That
is a high economic argument in which I do not believe one
iota. I am not exactly an economist, but I have looked upon
it as well as I can from a practical point of view, and I do not
think it would have a bad effect at all. I think wages are
based not upon the cost of producing a man and keeping him
alive, but upon a certain thing which I call the standard of
life and which may include any number of unnecessary things
which yet go to make up the standard of life. I think that
standard is beyond analysis in this particular way which is
attempted. I do not think you can work it out that the
labouring man costs so much to produce, but what I think you
have to work out is what are the customs of the country and
the general condition under which labour is carried on.
One of these conditions is the bargain that is made, especially
the collective bargain, for the price that is paid for the labour.
There are an enormous number of elements which go into the
fixing of the rate of wages, and this particular point, the
having of a small pension at 65, would not, I think, affect
that argument. But I fully admit that these are serious
questions.
" Then there is the question of the help from the children, Will children
and there, I think, the kindly feeling between parents and P *
children will not be in the slightest degree affected by this.
(Applause.) In many cases it would have the opposite effect
in two ways, because if they give it up as a bad job, and the
old people go into the workhouse, you lose what the children
perhaps would have been able to do for their parents, if their
parents had been able to contribute something towards the
house expenses. An old man or an old woman with merely
5s. a week would be a far more possible guest in a son or
daughter's house than one without it, and my impression is
that the children would do just about as much actually as they
do now, and do it in more comfortable and less strained
circumstances.
" And finally, the Poor Law does need reform. (Hear,
44 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Poor Law hear.) It is an extremely difficult task, but a task that would
reform. be immensely lightened if the bulk of the old people were
withdrawn from it. We should then, I think, be able to divide
those to whom relief is still necessary into far more definite
classes, treating each class suitably, and I think we should be
able to make very considerable economies, but above all we
should have a much more efficient system — one in which there
would be far less waste of expenditure than there is now.
Gentlemen, I have done. I would only beg of you to ask any
questions that you may desire, and I will do my best to
answer them, and to meet any objections that may be raised.
(Loud applause.)."
The Right Honourable
THOMAS BURT, M.P.,
Privy Councillor.
CHAPTER X
IN THE STRONGHOLD OF NORTHUMBRIAN
INDIVIDUALISM
Northumberland and Durham were first in the field. As a
Tynesider I may be allowed to be proud of the fact. Despite
the distractions of Christmastide and the New Year, Mr.
Burt and Mr. Wilkie had issued invitations and got all the
arrangements ready for a Conference on January 17th.
" Newcastle, I have always been told, is a test place.
Actors and lecturers reckon that if they succeed at Newcastle
they will succeed anywhere. It may prove to be so in regard
to our movement. If Newcastle repeats the experience of
Browning Hall, we may be sure of the rest of the country."
So I ventured to say to Mr. Booth, as we journeyed north-
ward. It was not the critical spirit of a Newcastle audience
that suggested awkward possibilities. It was the rugged
Individualism that was then rampant in the North. A relic
of the old days of Border warfare, when every castle was a
kingdom to itself, it survived in an outspoken dislike of all
forms of compulsory Collectivism. As is well known, it had
led even the Trade Unionists, and notably the miners, of
these two Northern counties to stand aloof from schemes of
intervention which commanded the support of the rest of the
Labour world. The miners' Executive had, as I have
reported, emancipated itself in regard to Pensions ; but in the
hundred delegates who were coming to the Conference from
all parts of the two counties, I did not know what antagonistic
feeling might be discovered.
Mr. Burt, with the genial tact and social wisdom which
distinguish him, had invited about a dozen of the principal
Labour men — the Labour Cabinet of the North — to meet
Mr. Booth at tea at his house in Burdon Terrace for a talk
over matters before the meeting began. So was formed a
nucleus of intellectual agreement and personal sympathy
most fruitful in after-results. I walked down to the meeting-
with our chief Individualist, the late Mr. Ralph Young. I
The Newcastle
test.
Over the
teacups.
45
46 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
found him an enthusiastic supporter of the Tsar's plea for dis-
armament. It was not hard to show how funds now applied to
the defence of the country from the misery of foreign invasion
might be devoted to the defence of the nation from the
misery of indigent age, without materially impinging on the
sovereign freedom of the individual.
The meeting was held in Burt Hall — the name a token of
the more than Border loyalty which gathered round the chief
of Northern Labour, our host and chairman. It was the
first time the hall had ever been used for other than purely
miners' business.
One hundred There were present fifty-seven representatives from thirty-
picked men. seven Trade Unions, twenty-nine from twenty Co-operative
Societies, eight from three Friendly Societies, and three from
two Trades Councils. The organized Labour of Northum-
berland and Durham was there in the persons of its most
trusted leaders. Canon Moore Ede and Dr. Robert Spence
Watson were among the visitors.
Mr. Booth's address was listened to with that intensity of
critical attention which Northumbrians think a characteristic
of their county. A most thoughtful and instructive discussion
followed.
Then came the astonishing result. These hundred delegates
of Northern Labour, hardheaded, independent, with a heredi-
tary tendency to separateness of judgment, found themselves
entirely and absolutely agreed in support of Mr. Booth's
contention. The vote was unanimous in support of a universal
and non-contributory system of Pensions to be provided out
of the sreneral taxation of the realm.
It would be bad taste to count up the converts who had
held other views in other days. But there were many fresh
points which emerged in the discussion. The experience of
the Northumberland Miners' Relief Fund showed that the
old age benefit they gave — some 4s. a week — encouraged
members not only to supplement that amount, but also to
cultivate care and thrift in general.
Mr. Charles Fenwick, M.P., discerned in the educative
methods of Mr. Booth's propaganda a most desirable inno-
vation. He expressed the hope that henceforth in the
discussion of political measures the ground should be cleared,
and fundamental principles laid down by social experts after
the manner of Mr. Booth. It would then, he argued, be
an easier matter to proceed to details of actual legislation.
That was a shrewd North country glimpse into the future.
By one of those coincidences in which our work abounds,
the same winter which witnessed the series of Conferences on
NORTHUMBRIAN INDIVIDUALISM 47
Old Age Pensions saw the Peace campaign carried all over Twin move-
the country in support of the Tsar's appeal for reduction of meats— for
armaments. The first public meeting in furtherance of the p**^- *"
Tsar's policy was held in Browning Hall on October 9th. A
Peace meeting, initiated by the Settlement, was held in
Newington Hall, Walworth, on January 31st. The two
movements were not merely synchronous : they were sup-
plementary counterparts. The less spent on powder, the
more to spare for Pensions. This question of the connec-
tion between the policy of peace abroad and social reform at
home was urged by more speakers than one. I pointed it out
more fully in my brother's " War against War," on
January 27th.
Before parting, the meeting appointed a committee to
further the movement in the two counties. The proceedings
were still kept from the newspapers, but a printed digest
similar to that issued after the first Conference, and less con-
densed, with full list of delegates, societies, and number of
members in each society, was distributed by the Newcastle
Committee through the lodges and branches of all forms of
associated Labour. The two counties were permeated with it.
The movement had stood the Newcastle test, and had
emerged triumphant.
There was good news for the Fellowship of Followers,
which met on the night after the Conference.
CHAPTER XI
YORKSHIRE, LANCASHIRE, WESTERN ENGLAND
AND SCOTLAND
The Leeds
conference.
Yorkshire
Socialism.
Leeds Conference, held on February 23rd, threatened at
first to be less satisfactory. Personally, I missed my train
North, missed therefore the preliminary chat over the tea-
cups with local leaders : and only arrived after the meeting
had begun. Then St. James's Hall, where we were gathered,
though perhaps well adapted for other purposes, was not
suited for conference. The platform was too high above the
ground floor, where most of the delegates sat. The chief
speakers seemed remote : an illusion strengthened by the
misty night. Mr. Booth seemed conscious of these depres-
sing facts. Nevertheless, Yorkshire Labour was unmistakably
there. Convened by Councillor Connellan, Secretary of the
Leeds Trades Council, it also included representatives of the
Trades Councils of Bradford, Sheffield, Hull, Middlesbrough,
Rotherham, Keighley, York, Stanningley, Shipley, Halifax,
Barnsley, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Mexborough,
Spen Valley, with a total membership of 76,500, along with
delegates from other independent Trade Unions, Friendly
and Co-operative Societies. Mr. P. Kennedy presided.
The discussion which arose after Mr. Booth's address was
very different from what we had heard in Newcastle and
Walworth. Yorkshire was as pronouncedly Socialistic as
Northumberland and Durham had been Individualistic.
Possibly Trades Councils were then more easily " captured "
by Socialists than were the Trade Unions. Be that as it
may, the demand for a national Pensions system which had
secured the zealous support of Northumberland Individualism
nearly came to grief at the hands of Yorkshire Socialism.
"Why make all this fuss about old age when the whole system
of society needed to be revolutionised? Were there not
other questions of more importance than aged poverty?
Were there not the unemployed ? ' ' Then the tendency manifest
at all the Conferences was here very strong : to ride off from
48
YORKSHIRE, LANCASHIRE, ETC. 49
the main issue on questions of the incidence of taxation.
The " unearned increment " was much in evidence. How
the money for Pensions should be raised seemed to be a much
more alluring subject of debate — it was certainly the source
of more divergent views — than the preliminary consideration
whether Pensions should be given at all. Such was the drift
of the debate.
When I was called on to speak, the prospect seemed Unseen
tragic. I should explain that my place in these Conferences ^neZout
was generally towards the close, when I could gather up the
main points on which the meeting was agreed, and relegate
the minor disagreements to their proper insignificance. But
at Leeds the task looked hopeless. Then I remembered Who
had led from the first. Signal victory had been given us
hitherto. We could not be forsaken now. I felt the swirl
around me of prayerful influence from afar. The answer
came. The meeting was won over. In a few minutes
antagonism, differences, all sank into the background : only
points of agreement remained in the foreground. The Con-
ference resolved to leave the sources of the requisite revenue
entirely unspecified. It rose to absolute unanimity in support
of the claim for free Pensions from the State for all aged Unanimous.
persons.
Yorkshire had fallen into line with Northumberland and
Durham.
It, too, formed its local committee for continued propa-
ganda, consisting of seven men, with Councillor Connellan as
convener.
Leeds was the first Conference to be reported in the news-
papers. Publicity was no longer a danger.
Lancashire's turn came next. Two days later, at the The
offices of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, Manchester, Manchester
there were convened by the Lancashire Federation of Trades meetm 8"
Councils, of which Mr. G. D. Kelley, J. P., was secretary,
about a hundred delegates, 46 representing the Trades
Councils of 26 towns: 22 came from 12 Trade Unions; 13
stood for 8 Co-operative Associations ; and 7 for three
Friendly Societies. We had before us the very pick and
flower of Lancashire Labour. They could not be docketed,
like the Northumbrians as Individualists, nor like the York-
shiremen as Socialists. They were simply and entirely
Lancashire men : and those who know Lancashire know
what that means. Mr. J. R. Clynes, of Oldham, presided,
and Mr. Booth's speech was followed by a vigorous debate.
Here emerged very clearly what has been a common
experience of the movement. Middle class visitors, invited
E
5o HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Unanimous.
At Bristol :
A solitary
opponent.
The Glasgow
two hundred.
by courtesy to take part in the discussion, displayed a
hankering after the now shattered idols of the Charity Organi-
sation Society, and occasionally gave a complexion of their
colour to the conversation. But when it came to the vote in
which only Labour delegates could take part, not a hand
was held up for the middle class contentions. Mr. Booth's
demand was again endorsed, with entire unanimity.
Lancashire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, and Durham had
all gone solid in support of Mr. Booth.
We had asked Mr. Booth to grant his presence at four great
cities. But other centres were determined not to be left out.
Mr. Booth consented to add a fifth and a sixth to the list of
Conferences. So Mr. Curie, J. P., Secretary of the Bristol
Trades Council convened in that city on March nth, a
gathering numbering about 70, representative of the Trades
Councils of Bristol, Bath, Swindon, Swansea, Barry, New-
port, Weston-super-Mare, Gloucester, Stroud, Somerset-
shire Miners' Association, Forest of Dean Labour Associa-
tion, two or three Co-operative Societies, as many Friendly
Societies, and a few other bodies including Bristol Board
of Guardians. It was not so exclusively restricted to
organized Labour as previous Conferences. Mr. Sheppard,
President of the home Council, took the chair. We were
promised here the somewhat appetizing variety of strong and
active opposition. But Mr. Booth came, spoke, conquered.
The final result was all but identically the same as in the
previous Conferences. There was one hand, and one hand
only, held up at Bristol against the formula of an Old Age
Pension from the State for every one. That solitary hand
has the distinction of recording the only vote opposed to Mr.
Booth's contention in the whole series of Conferences. Its
picturesque isolation makes the general unanimity stand out
with the greater impressiveness.
The movement could not be limited to England. In
response to requests from across the Border, Mr. Booth con-
sented to attend a Conference in Glasgow on March 14th.
It was convened by the Glasgow Trades Council, acting
through its Secretary, Mr. Isaac Mitchell. Between two and
three hundred attended the Conference at St. Andrew's Hall.
They included representatives from Trades Councils and
Trade Unions in many parts of Scotland. Aberdeen was
well in evidence. There were also present members of the
City Council. The University was represented by Professor
and Lady Mary Murray, and by Dr. Smart, Professor of
Economics. Mr. George Galloway, who presided, concluded
his opening address with a reference to the religious aspect
YORKSHIRE, LANCASHIRE, ETC. 51
of the movement. There were, he said, two sides to Christ-
ianity : the spiritual and the humane. Great prominence
had been given to the spiritual ; it was about time they laid
stress on the humane as well. In meeting as they did that
night, they knew they were following in the footsteps of
their Lord and Master Jesus Christ. The questions and
speeches which followed Mr. Booth's statement showed that
his ploughshare had been practically turning up virgin soil.
Many of the speakers were pre-occupied with theories of
fiscal resource, and single-taxers were much to the fore. But
they grew to see that their first business was to decide
whether they wanted State Pensions or not, leaving the ques-
tion of ways and means for consideration at a later stage.
The final vote was taken somewhat hurriedly, as the hour
was late, but it was entirely unanimous. Scottish Labour, Unanimous.
through its spokesmen there present, gave in its adhesion to
the demand for universal Old Age Pensions. Delegates were
also elected to serve for Scotland on the National Committee.
CHAPTER XII
EFFECT IN PARLIAMENT
The movement
now national.
The Midlands
and Joseph
Chamberlain.
The movement was now assuming national proportions. It
could no longer be hid. After the Newcastle Conference the
proceedings were thrown open to the Press, and reported at
varying length. Mr. Booth's printed Notes were being dis-
cussed in the Unions and Lodges which sent delegates.
Newspapers and magazines began to burn with the question.
Partisan recriminations forced it forward.
The Conference to be held in Birmingham on March 25th
was being convened by Mr. George Cadbury, and all the
arrangements bore witness to his thoroughness and
generosity. The area of representation covered nineteen
Midland counties. Between two and three thousand invita-
tions were sent out. The acceptances revealed an interest
as wide as it was intense. The Lord Mayor had kindly
offered the Council Chamber as place of meeting, but that
was found to be too small for the numbers intending to be
present.
All this ferment in the Midlands did not escape the atten-
tion of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. As is well known, he was
most sensitive to the development of public opinion in the
region where he was political lord paramount. On the 18th
of March he wrote from London : —
" I am obliged by your letter of the 16th inst., with invita-
tion to attend the Conference on Old Age Pensions which is
to be held in Birmingham on the 25th inst. You have rightly
assumed that, owing to my work in London, it will not be
possible for me to attend on this occasion, but I shall await
with great interest the report of your proceedings. While
most persons are agreed as to the greatness of the evil with
which we have to deal, there is marked difference of opinion
as to the lines on which a remedy can be found, and any
discussion which is calculated to throw light on this important
question will be most valuable."
Even before the Conference was held, he had evidence
enough to show that the people in his own peculiar sphere of
52
EFFECT IN PARLIAMENT
53
influence were just as little prepared as the other parts of the
country to rest satisfied with the negative conclusions of
Lord Rothschild's Committee.
On March 22nd he reopened the whole question in Parlia-
ment. He took occasion from the Second Reading of a Bill
introduced by Sir J. F. Flannery to engage in a general
survey of the situation in respect of Old Age Pensions. First
of all he announced the intention of the Government to
appoint a Select Committee to consider the subject again.
Next he repudiated the idea that it was the concern of any
one Party in the State. He declared it eminently desirable
that the best men of all Parties should take part in the
endeavour to find a remedy. He pronounced Lord Roths-
child's Committee wrong in the limiting interpretation they
placed upon the reference. He declared that the question
must be approached by sections. He then in effect renounced
his old suggestions by declaring it a mistake to confine
assistance entirely to those who have themselves directly
contributed to the pensions. " It is agreed," he said, " that
we must put aside at once any attempt to secure compulsory
contributions from the working classes." He in effect
endorsed Mr. Booth's criticisms of contributory systems.
At the same time he regarded a universal system as im-
practicable on account of its enormous cost and lack of
discrimination. He concluded by stating that the Govern-
ment was still anxious to find a remedy and willing to try
every experiment which had a probability of success. It
would not rest satisfied until it had done something to make
the condition of the poor more satisfactory than it is.
As the leader of the Opposition heartily approved this
irenicon, good citizens felt henceforth at liberty to support
the movement without fear of compromising themselves in
partisan polemics. This was precisely the spirit which had
pervaded the Labour Conferences. Partisan references were
extremely rare, and when they did occur they were either
ruled out or laughed out as irrelevant.
The conviction was general that but for the series of
Labour Conferences, the Pensions question would not have
been reopened. The volume of national opinion which had
found expression could not be ignored.
The ready acquiescence of leaders of both Parties in the
suggestion that Pensions should no longer be a Party
question, but should be consigned to the good offices of the
best men in all Parties, was — perhaps cynically — regarded in
some quarters as a graceful way of shelving the whole
matter.
A Select
Committee to
be formed.
The
Contributory
Principle given
up.
Why the
Committee ?
CHAPTER XIII
THE VOICE OF THE MIDLANDS
The
Birmingham
Conference.
' Christian
men of all
Parties.'
The Birmingham Conference was finally held (March 25th)
in the large and beautiful Examination Hall of the Technical
School — one of those municipal palaces which are the glory
of Birmingham. The room, which accommodates 700, was
crowded almost to suffocation. Every delegate on entering
presented his credentials from the Trade Union, Friendly
Society, or Co-operative Association which sent him. The
leaders of the organized Labour of the Midlands were there in
compact array, and the sight of their upturned faces, eager,
intelligent, resolute, was an experience long to be remembered.
Prominent representatives of the philanthropic and civic life
of Birmingham occupied the platform. The sudden and
lamented death of Mr. Richard Cadbury, a few days before,
prevented his brother presiding as had been intended. The
chair was taken instead by Councillor Stevens, who had
presided over the Birmingham meeting of the Trade Union
Congress, and proved himself now, as then, a most admirable
chairman. Mr. George Cadbury sent a letter insisting
on our duty "as a Christian nation" to make better provision
for the aged poor. He advocated the adoption of some
measure like the New Zealand Act. He urged Friendly
Societies and Trade Unions to agree on some definite Pension
scheme, and to make it a test question at the next general
election. " Christian men of all Parties would be willing to
forward such a Bill." A letter from Sir Walter Foster, M.P. ,
declared that " there is no scheme for Pensions so good as
Mr. Booth's," and that but for the cost he should " simply
support it." This meeting soon showed that it was not so
easily deterred. The chairman led off with a frank advocacy
of universal Pensions. Mr. Booth had a great reception,
and was in excellent form. He referred to Mr. Chamberlain's
speech on the previous Wednesday, and said " the con-
tributory schemes were condemned by Lord Rothschild's
Committee, and on Wednesday evening in the House of
Commons they were absolutely and entirely condemned by
54
THE VOICE OF THE MIDLANDS
55
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who at one time believed that in
them the solution of the problem would be found. And the
reason of this condemnation which he gave in his speech is
exactly the same as I have given in my report." The half-
hour of questions which came afterwards was the occasion of
much crisp and lively repartee, which delighted the audience.
At first it seemed as though Mr. Booth's refusal to dis-
criminate between rich and poor, or " deserving " and
" undeserving " would prove a stone of stumbling. But the
parallel of free education cleared the way. Just as you pro-
vide free schools for every child in the realm, argued Mr.
Booth, so you may provide free pensions for every aged
person in the realm. You do not compel a rich man to
send his son to the Board School ; you need not compel a
rich man to receive the pension ; but in both cases the State
can make equal provision. Universality alone, he contended,
would remove the pauper taint.
But would he bestow the same pension on the idle and
reprobate as on the thrifty and industrious? Mr. Booth
replied with a smile that already the reprobate got their
subsistence out of society, and he did not propose to take
away any of their rights.
The subsequent discussion was remarkable for the resolute
purpose which ran through it. The meeting showed itself
thoroughly in earnest, bent on getting something done, and
that speedily; fiercely, almost contemptuously, resenting the
intrusion of merely partisan issues. The moment it appeared
that a speaker was more anxious to denounce the Govern-
ment for breaking its pledges than to advance the movement
towards practical achievement, the meeting refused to listen
to him : and when he announced himself a Radical, simply
swept him away in an avalanche of ridicule. The cut and
thrust of the partisan might do for Parliament : they were
felt to be utterly out of place in a company of serious
working men resolved on obtaining some definite practical
good. A yet more significant scene occurred later, which
suggests how widely different the world of the working man
is from that in which middle-class politicians once seemed to
live and move. A speaker wished to suggest that Old Age
Pensions might well be obtained by " the resumption of
Church funds." His very first reference to "the crisis in
the Church " was greeted with jeers. These were redoubled
when he mentioned the word " Disestablishment,'" and only
the resolute intervention of the chairman secured him a
hearing until, in the fewest words possible, he got out his
idea. The storm of disapprobation and even merriment
Free Schools
and free
Pensions.
No partisan
nonsense.
Disendowment
at a discount.
56 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
which broke loose at the sound of " Disendowment " drove
him to his seat. And this, be it remembered, was in the
Birmingham of Bright and Dale and the early Chamberlain !
The suggestion could hardly have received less respectful
treatment at the hands of curates and country parsons in
Church Congress assembled.
Gradually the meeting settled down to agreement on the
main point. The venerable Alderman Manton, for many
years chairman of the Birmingham Board of Guardians,
gave the movement his patriarchal blessing. There was
some excellent speaking by prominent Labour Leaders. The
conviction visibly deepened that the duty of the Conference
was not to suggest compromises or concessions in advance,
but to make perfectly clear what it wanted in its entirety : to
affirm a principle, not to draft a Bill.
Finally, a resolution was submitted, declaring that " this
Conference of duly accredited representatives " gave " a
general and hearty support " to the principles set forth by
Mr. Booth. And this resolution — printed in the agenda
paper, which was in everyone's hands — duly and deliberately
moved, seconded, and supported — was carried with absolute
Unanimous. unanimity. The enormous significance of this unanimous
vote is confirmed by the following excerpt from the official
register of attendance : —
There were present from
Manchester Unity and other Orders of
Oddfellows
Ancient Order of Foresters
Co-operative Societies
Trades Councils
Trade Unions
Other Economic Societies
Ancient Order of Buffaloes
Order of Druids
Order of Rechabites ...
Other members of Conference were 66, being representa-
tives of various City and Town Councils, School Boards, and
Boards of Guardians, making a total of 630 persons
representing 347,550 others.
In addition to the above the membership of 14 Friendly
Society branches was not supplied by the delegates represent-
ing such societies.
The Friendly Societies' representatives were drawn from
No. of
No. of
Delegates
Members
sent.
represented
)f
• 175
•• 40,843
• I3 2
■ 37,996
■ 47
•• 54,373
• 27
•• 77,450
. 96
• 105,207
■ 47
.. 23,121
10
4,612
• 17
3,211
13
737
THE VOICE OF THE MIDLANDS
57
the counties of Derby, Hereford, Leicester, Northampton,
Notts, Oxford, Salop, Staffs, Warwick, and Worcester.
Representatives were present from the Trades Councils of
Derby, Leicester, Worcester, Cheltenham, Smethwick,
Northampton, Walsall, Kettering, Burton-on-Trent, Dudley,
Wolverhampton, Coventry, West Bromwich, and Birmingham.
Such a vote, by such a Conference could not be explained
away. Following as it did the equally unanimous vote of the
six other Conferences, it indicated a social portent of the first
magnitude.
The progress of the movement had brought to light a new A new kind
kind of agitation. It was directed to the remedy of a great of agitation,
popular grievance. It was attempting a reform of dimen-
sions that were simply colossal. Yet the initiative of hope
and courage came, not from the Imperial Government, with
all its resources of power and wealth, but from a small
colony at the Antipodes. The response comes in the first
instance from an obscure corner of the metropolis. But that
response is ushered in with mysterious prognostications and
accompaniments from the transcendent sphere. As it
emerges into public life, the statesman seems to abdicate
his functions, the sociologist takes his place. Instead of
Midlothian campaigns aflame with political passion, is a
series of Conferences listening to exquisite lucid University
Extension Lectures on a complex social problem. The plat-
form pugilist and the political bravo are at a discount.
The expert is in demand. People show themselves actually
more interested in getting things done than in " palpable
hits " scored by political opponents. Even partisan chiefs
find it expedient to disavow partisanship in this question.
" The best men in all parties " are invited to co-operate.
Similarly, in the promotion of reform, the nucleus of
organisation is not the Party caucus, but the Trades Council
or the Trade Union. The professional politician recedes
before the Labour leader. The philanthropist shoulders the
task which the Cabinet Minister has apparently dropped in
despair.
These were notable symptoms of change. Here was a
new thing.
On the motion in the House of Commons on April 25th, In the Hous«
1899, "That a Select Committee of seventeen members be of Commons,
appointed to consider and report upon the best means of
improving the conditions of the aged deserving poor and for
providing for those of them who are helpless and infirm ;
and to inquire whether any of the Bills dealing with Old A^e
58 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Government
Intentions.
Mr. Lecky's
testimony.
Pensions and submitted to Parliament during the present
session can with advantage be adopted either with or without
amendment," Mr. Asquith said, " There are many of us on
this side of the House who are not satisfied with any one of
the schemes yet put forward, as being either practical or
adequate. "
Mr. Chamberlain said he was not inclined to say that any
scheme could be found which will not be practicable. The
adequacy of it might be a matter of argument. He declared
that the appointment of a committee would not delay dealing
with the matter. He said, " What we have said again and
again, and what we are prepared to say now, is that we hope
and intend to deal with this matter before we leave office. . . .
I express again my confident hope that before the Government
goes out of office, we shall have done something which will
furnish a practical scheme, the experience of which will be
extremely useful in the future and will lead to the ultimate
solution of the question."
This was a very definite and categorical statement of the
purpose of the Government. I grieve to have to ask how far
it was an accurate statement. For, admittedly the great
difficulty about Old Age Pensions was the question of finance,
and the intention of any Government to deal with Pensions
inevitably involved the acquiescence at least of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer at that
time — in fact, from 1895 to 1902 — was the Right Hon. Sir
Michael Hicks-Beach, afterwards Viscount St. Aldwyn ; and
five years later, when the muzzle of office had been removed
from his lips, the Right Hon. Sir Michael declared that in
his judgment any Old Age Pensions scheme was, on grounds
of finance, impossible ! This remarkable utterance will be
given more fully in our record of 1904.
There is seemingly a Parliamentary superstition which
makes honourable and especially right honourable members
chary of referring to movements in the country, and sedu-
lously limits their references to what has come before the
House or has been spoken elsewhere by members of Parlia-
ment. Mr. Lecky, free in this as in other respects from the
meaningless conventions of Parliament, got up and frankly
declared that " some of the best supported schemes had been
those of Mr. Booth." And he went on to say that he was
probably not alone in thinking that this was one of the most
dangerous questions that had ever been discussed in the
House. The result of Mr. Booth's scheme would be to add
to the annual expenditure a sum amounting to the whole of
the interest on the National Debt which had been swept away
since the peace of 181 5.
C— THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF
ORGANIZED LABOUR
CHAPTER XIV
A BOOK FROM MR. BOOTH
The ist of May (Labour Day), 1899, saw published for the ^ Definite
first time the scheme of Old Age Pensions proposed by Mr. Scheme.
Booth. He had never before submitted to the public a definite
demand on the subject. In 1892, indeed, he brought out a
sixpenny volume of 188 pages (Macmillan) entitled " Pauper-
ism, a Picture; and Endowment of Old Age, an Argument,"
which had been frequently spoken of as embodying Mr.
Booth's proposals. It was, however, he was frequently at
pains to explain, " an argument " and not a scheme. Again
in 1894 he published a massive array of facts as to the
Condition of the Aged Poor (Macmillan, 8s. 6d.). But until
this book of 88 pages (Macmillan, 6d.), Mr. Booth had never
committed himself to any specific scheme. He had limited
himself in print and on platform to the general demand for
a free pension from the State for every aged person.
Now he descended from the heights of a principle which he
felt to be impregnable to the lower and more assailable levels
of practical particulars. The book falls into two parts. The
first, with preface, recapitulates in some thirty pages of
concise and graphic statement the information given in the
author's previous works on the condition of the aged poor.
The second part deals with proposals. On page 44 Mr. Booth
plunges into the scheme and its cost : —
" The most desirable age for a State pension is put by , __ fl
various authorities at 60, 65, 70 and 75. If we consider
solely the usual working powers of men, 60 is now late enough
in most manual industries ; but some employments press less
hardly, and in most cases the industrial breakdown precedes
the financial breakdown by several years, so that we find 65
59
6o HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
age
Weekly
Amount, 7s,
Earlier and
Smaller
Pensions.
at which pauperism increases by leaps and
thus this age has been commonly chosen as
the time ' when strength is gone and money
But nevertheless,
to be the
bounds, and
representing .
spent and — pensions — are most excellent
for reasons which I shall by-and-by give, the age of 70 is
the basis of my scheme.
" Just as 65 has been the usually accepted age, so 5s. per
week has been the usually accepted amount, though various
sums from as. 6d. to 10s. a week have been suggested in
connection with different schemes, and here again I diverge
from the accepted mean and suggest 7s. The Act would
provide that every one should, on attaining 70 years of age,
be entitled to a pension of 7s. a week for the remainder of
life. There would be provision for excluding aliens, and
there are no doubt other exceptions to be made, but with
these details it is unnecessary to burthen my present statement.
"The decision as to the age of the applicants should, I
think, rest with the Registrars, Superintendent-Registrars,
and finally, in case of need, with the Registrar-General, unless
a special officer were appointed in connection with the Local
Government Board for this and other purposes connected with
Pension administration."
The payment, Mr. Booth urged, should be made through
the Post Office, and should be drawn weekly in person.
" It is an integral part of my plan that, concurrently with
the establishment of pensions in old age, out-relief under the
Poor Law should be abolished, except, perhaps, for a limited
period in widowhood or other cases of sudden calamity. . . .
But to abolish out-relief without causing hardship would be
a task of some difficulty, especially for those over 60 and
under 70 years of age. All those who look forward to receiv-
ing their pension at 70 would be able to secure it at an earlier
age by payment of the extra cost involved, and action of this
kind would be facilitated through the Post Office. Many poor
cases, however, will remain, especially in regard to the
poverty of to-day, which might seem mocked by the offer of
assistance at 70, and whose needs might be sufficiently met
with something less than 7s. a week — the cases of those who,
without present help, must inevitably become paupers, but
who might still retain their independence if permitted to
discount their pension expectation. To meet needs of this
kind, I think it might be desirable in some cases to grant
pensions, reduced in amount, proportionately to the age at
which payment begins.
"The conditions on which such exceptional treatment might
be accorded would be equality of cost to the State, coupled
A BOOK FROM MR. BOOTH
61
with some practical security for the independence of the
recipient. From 60 to 70 is usually the time of danger, when
for many of the poor the workhouse begins to loom in the
distance. The cost to the State of an annuity of 2s. 6d. a
week from 60, or 4s. from 65, or 7s. from 70 is approximately
the same. Beyond these limits I should in no case go."
Then comes a suggestion which created not a little surprise
in the ranks of Labour. They had looked forward to the
absolute severance of Pensions from all connection with the
Poor Law. Yet Mr. Booth said : —
" My suggestion is, that any persons who have reached
60 years of age, and whose means are diminishing so that
they are in evident danger of having sooner or later to seek
relief, should be entitled to lay their case before the Guardians
of their parish, whose interest in the matter is evident. The
Guardians, if they are themselves satisfied on the subject,
would report the case as suitable for special treatment. No
case should be recommended by them or accepted by the
Pension Authority unless need were shown for this concession,
or if an income could not be assured which, with the reduced
pension, might be expected to suffice for the maintenance of
a decent existence. The supplementary provision would
always be most satisfactory if it took the shape of a sum of
money paid into the Post Office which would serve to raise
the reduced pension to a minimum of 5s. or whatever sum
might be considered requisite to maintain independence."
As regards the existing paupers, Mr. Booth would allow
out-paupers over 70 to claim their pensions, and those
between 60 and 70 might claim for an anticipated pension
of reduced amount, towards supplementing which charitable
funds might very properly be applied. Indoor paupers of
suitable age would be free to leave the workhouse and claim
their pension. But re-entry into the workhouse would forfeit
the pension to the Guardians.
The total expenditure on a universal basis would, he
pointed out, be almost the same for 70 at 7s., for 65 at 4s.,
and for 60 at 2s. 6d. — in round numbers, about nineteen or
twenty millions. To lessen the cost he proposes to reduce
the woman's pension to 5s., bringing down the total to
sixteen millions. By way of amends, as sixteen millions is
too large a sum to add all at once to the national expendi-
ture, he would chivalrously allow the women to be pensioned
first. Seven or seven and a half millions would suffice for
the women ; then eight or nine millions might be added
afterwards for men.
Mr. Booth did not repeat the suggestions for raising the
Supplementary
Outdoor
Belief.
Lower
Pensions to
Women.
From Taxes
and Rates.
62 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
money which he made in 1892. He held that the huge
subventions that have been granted from time to time from
Imperial to local treasuries might be replaced by the pro-
viding of Pensions. Three and a half millions for the women
might be deducted from the subventions, and three millions
needed for the men might be found in the same way. Six
and a half millions would thus be thrown on the rates ; but
of this sum the larger part would be saved out of the Poor
Law expenditure. It was no part of his task to suggest
sources of revenue. It was not unreasonable to hope, both
from increased yield of present taxes and from a possible
check to the increase of armaments, that the necessity for
further taxation may not be great.
Th c In concluding Mr. Booth traces his universal scheme back
Originator. to a pamphlet published in 1879 by Mr. R. P. Hookham, of
Islip, Oxfordshire, and called " Outlines of a Scheme for
Dealing with Pauperism." To Mr. Hookham, then living
at the advanced age of 92, Mr. Booth " very humbly
dedicates this book."
CHAPTER XV
THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE FORMED.
The seven Conferences had been held : seven local com-
mittees had been formed : to advance the movement in their its personnel,
own districts and to combine in a national committee. They
were composed of the following persons (* members of
Executive) : —
London or National Unions. — *Geo. N. Barnes (Sec.
A.S.E.), London; ^Margaret Bondfield (Shop Assistants),
London; F. Chandler, J. P. (Sec. Carpenters and Joiners),
Manchester; A. J. Collett (Clerks), London; Will Crooks
(L.C.C.), Poplar; Emily Janes (National Union Women
Workers); James Kidd (A.S.E.), Greenwich; John Lamb
(Operative Plasterers), London; J. Maddison (Sec. Iron
Founders), London; Fredk. Maddison, M.P., Wandsworth;
J. Macdonald (London Trades Council); S. Masterman (Iron
Founders), London ; James Macpherson (Shop Assistants),
London; E. T. Mendell (London Cabdrivers' Union); Coun-
cillor Millington, J. P. (Hull Trades Council); J. Sansom
(Gas Workers), London; W. Stevenson (Builders' Labourers),
Bermondsey ; Benj. Wright (A.S.E.), London.
Northumberland and Durham. — *Thos. Burt, M.P.
(Northumberland Miners), Newcastle-on-Tyne ; John Johnson
(Durham Miners), Durham; James Burn (A.S.E.), Sunder-
land; R. Knight, J. P. (Boilermakers), Newcastle; Canon
Moore Ede, Gateshead-on-Tyne ; *Alex. Wilkie (Sec. Ship-
wrights), 3, St. Nicholas Buildings, Newcastle, Convener.
Yorkshire.— F. W. Booth, Hull Trades Council; C.
Brumpton, Mexborough Trades Council; W. T. Grimes,
York Trades Council; *Councillor Chas. Hobson, J. P.,
Sheffield Trades Council ; E. Harvey, Bradford Trades
Council ; Councillor Parker, Halifax Trades Council ; Coun-
cillor O. Connellan, 3, Faith Street, Leeds (Leeds Trades
Council), Convener.
Lancashire. — Lancashire Federation of Trades Councils.
— E. Burne, Ashton-under-Lyme ; J. R. Clynes, Oldham; J.
Chapman, Radcliffe ; J. Fielding, Rochdale; A. H. Gill,
63
64 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Bolton ; W. Harrocks, Bury ; J. R. Lomas, Farnworth ; *J.
Markham, Burnley; *G. D. Kelley, J. P., 63, Upper Brooke
Street, Manchester, Convener.
West of England and South Wales. — Councillor W.
Baster, Bristol; F. Freeman (O.S.M.), Bristol; E. H. Jarvis,
Pres. Labour Electoral Association, Bristol ; W. R. Oxley,
Bristol ; J. Pearson, Bristol Trades Council ; Councillor
Sharland (A.S.E.), Bristol; F. Sheppard (National Federa-
tion Trades Councils), Bristol; S. H. Whitehouse (Somerset
Miners), Radstock ; *Councillor J. Curie, J. P., 17, Oxford
Street, Totterdown, Bristol, Convener.
Scotland. — James Boyd (Free Gardeners), Glasgow; John
Cronin (Steel and Iron Workers), Glasgow ; A. Catto,
Aberdeen Trades Council; *J. A. Glen, Glasgow Co-operative
Conference ; George Galloway, Glasgow Trades Council ;
*Isaac Mitchell (A.S.E.), 9, Murray Street, Maryhill,
Glasgow, Convener.
The Midlands. — *Edward Cadbury, Birmingham ; W.
Cope, Birmingham. *Arthur Eades, Birmingham Trades
Council ; *Allan Granger (Typographical Association),
Birmingham ; *Councillor J. Holmes (Hosiery Federation),
Leicester ; ^Councillor S. Hudson (Foresters), Leicester ;
*Councillor R. S. Milner, Leek ; *Albert Stanley (Miners),
Cannock; *Councillor J. V. Stevens, Birmingham; Coun-
cillor J. Taylor (Midland Trades Federation), Dudley;
*Robert Waite, 20, Park Hill Road, Harborne, Convener.
Constituted The nrs ' meeting of the national committee so formed was
May 9, 1899. held at Browning Hall on the 9th of May — two days, as it
happened, after Robert Browning's birthday. There were
present fourteen members of the London committee, one from
Northumberland and Durham, five from Yorkshire, four
from Lancashire, one from the West of England, two from
Scotland, and eleven from the Midlands. Mr. Charles Booth
and his son, Mr. George Booth, were there; and Mrs. Booth
was good enough to come and take tea with the company
before the deliberations began. Entirely one with her
husband in the movement, Mrs. Booth had previously been
prevented by ill-health from attending any of the Conferences.
With the more pleasure was she welcomed now.
Title. The full style and title of the new body, as entered in its
minute book, ran to formidable extent: "The National
Committee of Organized Labour (Trade Unions, Trade
Councils, Federations of these bodies, Friendly Societies,
and Co-operative Societies) on Old Age Pensions, based on
the Principle that every old person on attaining a given
age should be entitled to receive a free Pension from the
EDWARD CAD BURY,
Treasurer to the National Pensions Committee.
THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE FORMED
65
Officers.
Mr. Booth's
scheme :
agreements
and
differences.
State ; and charged with the Instruction to promote the
legal enactment of this Principle." It became more gener-
ally known as the National Committee of Organized Labour
on Old Age Pensions, or, more shortly still, the National
Pensions Committee.
This body at its first meeting constituted itself a per-
manent committee, with power to add to its number
representatives of new districts as they should hereafter be
formed. It chose as its chairman Councillor J. V. Stevens,
of Birmingham; Mr. Edward Cadbury as Hon. Treasurer;
Mr. Robert Waite, who had so splendidly organized the
Birmingham Conference, and myself as Hon. Secretaries.
Mr. Booth had, with characteristic generosity, provided
each member with advance copies of his book, and the
principal proposals therein contained were submitted
seriatim for discussion. Already several of these were
known to be by no means accepted by some of the most
prominent Labour leaders present, and a delicate, even painful
situation was apprehended.
Two minor points were first agreed to : that the Pensions
Officer should be the Registrar of Births and Deaths ; and
that payment be made through the Post Office.
It was on the question of age limit that cleavage first Age limit.
showed itself. Mr. Booth had suggested 70. Sixty-five
was proposed : then an amendment of 60. The deep
personal concern shown by the Labour men on finding them-
selves in serious disagreement with Mr. Booth was a crucial
evidence of the intense admiration and reverent affection
they felt towards him. It found a noble counterpart in the
magnanimity of Mr. Booth. There was something pathetic
in the inquiry addressed to him as to the effect that their
dissent from his recommendations might have upon his
relation to the movement. He cheerily replied, that would
be no reason for his parting company with them. The vote
was then taken : and as the matter has been much discussed
in the Labour world the figures should be given. For 60 as
the age limit, 15; against, 17. The resolution fixing 65
was then put, and carried nem. con.
The amount of the pension to be demanded was next
fixed. The suggestion in Mr. Booth's book that men should
have 7/- a week and women 5/- was not adopted. There
was a unanimous vote for 5/- a week for men equally with
women. The Pension Fund it was agreed should be
derived from the general taxes. The committee decided
not to connect Pensions with any particular form of
taxation.
The weekly
amount.
66 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
A paid
Secretary.
Divergence
from
Mr. Booth.
Adviser-in-
General.
An Executive was then chosen, consisting of those to
whose names an asterisk is affixed in the foregoing list.
A letter from Mr. George Cadbury was read in which he
said, " I presume there must be a paid secretary if the
organization is to accomplish its work. ... I will gladly
unite with others by giving ^50 a year."
Mr. Booth intimated that as the committee had not
endorsed his specific proposals as to age and amount of
pension, he could with the more readiness promise to
contribute to the expenses of the organization. (^50 a
year was the figure named later.) At the same time he
expressed his belief that when members had given fuller
consideration to his proposals, they would come round to
his way of thinking.
So the National Committee came into distinct existence.
In the things wherein it differed from Mr. Booth, it had
vindicated its own independence of judgment. It had at the
same time paid him the sincerest compliment in its power.
It was so entirely convinced of the truth and justice of
Mr. Booth's principles that it would tolerate no compromise
or deviation from them, even though proposed by Mr. Booth
himself. Therefore it abjured any and every connection
between Pensions and Poor Law. Therefore it insisted on
absolute equality between men and women as pensioners.
And, as the Act of 1908 has proved, the National Committee
has on these distinctive points won the nation to its will
Mr. Booth was pressed to assume the presidency of the
new organization, but he declined, urging that a recognized
Labour leader should be head of a committee of organized
Labour. But at the same time he promised to do anything
he could to further the success of our movement. That
promise has been magnificently fulfilled. The National
Committee resolved from the first to avail itself of his
guidance, to keep in close touch with him, and to consult
him before publishing any printed matter. Even where
opinions diverged, mutual respect was mostly deepened by
the divergence. Amid the distractions of many other
absorbing pursuits, aggravated too often by the claims of
illhealth, Mr. Booth has never failed all these ten years to
respond to our appeal for advice. He has been to the
movement throughout much more than guide, philosopher,
and friend,
CHAPTER XVI
THE FIRST TRUMPET BLAST OF ORGANIZED
RELIGION
The change in legislative opinion from the appearance of Change of
the Report of Lord Rothschild's Committee to the formation P olitical
of the National Committee was like a change of climate from
arctic to tropical. The Government was pledged to legislate
on the question before leaving office, and that term was
rapidly arriving. The Government had appointed Mr.
Chaplin's Committee, but was now so eager to provide
pensions that it did not bind itself to wait for that Committee's
report. The earliest date on which Mr. Chamberlain said
the Government could bring in a measure was next session.
In one or two years, therefore, legislation was expected.
So no time was to be lost by the National Committee in
ensuring that the expected legislation should be on the lines
approved by organized Labour.
Three days after the Committee was constituted, I induced The
the Congregational Union of England and Wales, then in Congregational
session at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, to consider mon '
the following resolution, which I moved : —
" That this Assembly, remembering the solemn charges of
the Christ to His followers concerning their duty to the poor,
and observing the widespread demand which is being made
for Old Age Pensions, hereby affirms its conviction that it is
the duty of all Christian citizens to endeavour to secure more
honourable provision than is now made, for the support of
the aged poor."
There is one passage in the speech of my seconder, Rev.
E. Griffith Jones, B.A., which may well be quoted here. He
said : " It seems to me that this question has very suddenly
and very marvellously come into the open. The Labour
leaders are almost as much surprised at the way the matter
has shaped itself out during these Conferences as anybody
outside. They have looked on each other with a sort of
68 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
" Pensions for
All" at Id.
Ammunition
for the
Campaign.
amazement to find each other in line on the matter." The
resolution was carried unanimously.
Mr. Booth, with generosity and magnanimity combined,
brought out at the price of id. a condensed issue of his
"Argument," carefully excluding the parts in which he
differed from the National Committee, while adding a list of
its members and the text of its constitutive resolution. Of
these pamphlets, entitled " Pensions for all in Old Age," he
presented several thousands for distribution by the Com-
mittee. This is only one illustration out of a great number
which might be adduced of the munificence of Mr. Booth's
authorship. His works have been given to the public, with
a princely disregard of pecuniary reimbursement.
The small arms ammunition of a campaign is the leaflet.
And the first of a large succession of leaflets, entitled " The
Case Briefly Stated," was composed by Mr. George Barnes,
who from first to last has been one of the most resolute and
persistent promoters of the cause. One hundred thousand
copies were struck off. Five thousand copies of a verbatim
report of the proceedings of the Birmingham Conference were
presented by Mr. George Cadbury, and freely dissipated.
The organized Labour of Great Britain forms a permanent
network of communication all over the land : and full use was
made of this widespread agency for distributing as cheaply,
as swiftly and as effectively as possible our printed matter.
A yet more efficient means of education was supplied by
the leading personnel of these Unions. Almost every man of
them was more or less habituated to public speech and in
demand on platforms of every kind. The opportunities they
had for talking about Pensions in public and in private were
almost innumerable. And they used them : with striking
effect.
We somewhat defiantly headed our notepaper : —
"A Free State Pension for everyone on reaching 6<; years of age.
National Committee of Organised Labour
APPOINTED <\T THE SEVEN CONFERENCE of Mr. CHARLES ROOTH, with
representatives
of Trade Unions, Friendly Societies and Co-operative Societies"
with the names of all our Committee attached.
Headquarters
at Browning
Hall.
The use of the Warden's room at Browning Hall was
offered by the Settlement and accepted by the Executive, as
the office of the National Committee. Browning Hall, which
had been the cradle, became the headquarters of the move-
ment. To quote my friend Mr. Rogers, " The birth of the
FIRST TRUMPET BLAST OF RELIGION 69
Old Age Pensions movement here recalls a phrase of Haw-
thorne's — ' There is sometimes a quaint and peculiar fitness
in what are called the accidents of life.' For it was Robert
Browning who wrote, with magnificent optimism : —
" Grow old along with me !
The best is yet to be.
The last of life, for which the first was made " ;
and who claimed that age ought to be, and might be, the
finest part of life if the life has been worth anything,
because it contains the summing up of life's experience."
Propaganda went on " full steam ahead."
CHAPTER XVII
AN IDEAL SECRETARY
A type not One of the most urgent of all needs was to find the
easily found, right man for our paid secretaryship. This threatened to be
no easy task. For, as we have seen, the National Committee
was a new thing. It was a synthesis of representatives of all
schools and parties and churches. It was political, yet non-
partisan. It was not the least common denominator : it was
the greatest common multiple. It stood for the largest social
reform now before the nation. A man broad enough and big
enough and genial enough to carry on the work would be one
in a million.
Mr. Frederick Maddison, Mr. Barnes, Miss Bondfield, and
I were appointed to find him. We met one beautiful summer
evening on the terrace of the House of Commons. I had to
report that I had written all round to friends likely to advise,
but in vain. Several names were, however, suggested. Then
Mr. Maddison proposed Mr. Frederick Rogers.
I heard with a leap of the heart.
Here indeed was the man.
The very I had known Mr. Rogers then for about three years. He
man. was president of the Vellum Binders when I first met him :
and he had impressed me as an ideal Labour leader. He had
frequently spoken to the men at Browning Hall : and his
addresses had revealed a breadth of sympathy combined with
a depth of conviction that was rare indeed. He was genial,
eloquent, persuasive ; and his speech was ever the speech of
a high-souled man. He kept on surprising one with the
variety of his qualities. He was a man of affairs, and also a
man of letters. He was keenly interested in all social
questions, yet had kept himself aloof from entanglements of
Party. He was modern to the finger-tips, yet responded to
the charm of antiquity with the enthusiasm of an archaeolo-
gist. He was a pioneer of the University Extension move-
ment. He was a passionate student of Elizabethan literature,
had become in it a specialist, and University men were glad
to sit at his feet as he lectured on his chosen theme. But
70
FREDERICK ROGERS,
Organising Secretary to the National Pensions Committee
Photo by Elliott & Fry.
AN IDEAL SECRETARY
7i
deepest of all was the religious impulse. Son of a beautifully
devout Baptist mother, much influenced in his youth by
Allanson Picton and Dean Stanley, he had, after wide wander-
ing- in the wilderness of speculation, come to rest under
Father Stanton's guidance in the Anglo-Catholic fold. I had
found about him many suggestions of the encyclopaedic range
of sympathy centring in religion which makes the theologian.
Every now and again in hearing him one came on the deep
theological instinct. His stern stress on sin separated him at
once from the crowd of shallow theorizers who fancy that
a film of optimistic vaseline spread over the surface with fine
verbal dexterity will heal the social cancer below. With
sympathies so wide and various, Mr. Rogers showed himself
at home in every circle. Hyde Park demonstration, Concilia-
tion Board, workmen's club, Trade Union, journalistic set,
University common room, Deanery drawing-room, monastic
retreat — place him where you would, Frederick Rogers was
always his own genial self, ready to give and receive of the
best available. Possessed of a rare genius of friendship, he
had a positive fascination for young men, to whom he was
father and confessor and brother in one.
And this man, so exceptionally endowed and trained, was
willing and free to become our secretary !
Here was another confirmation of the Purpose that had
initiated our movement. Had we searched through the whole
Labour world as known to us — and I speak now after ten
years more experience — we could not have found another
man who so precisely fitted the new post, with all its exacting
niches. And just when he was needed, he was there, ready
to step in at once.
Nomination, we all agreed, was election.
One of the most essential conditions was that the secretary
be a person acceptable to all sections of the Labour world.
He had to maintain and extend the remarkable union of
Labour forces which signalized our movement. This con-
dition was entirely fulfilled. "They all speak well of
Rogers," said one. " Even the Socialists," said another,
" haven't a word to say against him."
When the Executive Committee met at Birmingham on
July 8th, the result was a foregone conclusion. The only
question was the period of his engagement. Some sanguine
souls thought he might be needed only seven months ! The
Executive as a whole thought two years would be nearer the
mark. Finally he was unanimously appointed for a year, the
engagement being annually renewable.
A memorandum of what Mr. Rogers had already achieved
His deepest
self.
Synthesis
personified.
Election.
72 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
was first submitted to the Executive, and may here be given,
in the fuller detail supplied by later knowledge.
His life-story. Frederick Rogers was born in Whitechapel in 1846. He
commenced work as an errand boy to an ironmonger at 2s. a
week. From childhood he suffered much from spinal disease.
This ailment was aggravated by the heavy loads that he had
to carry as an errand boy. They were often as much as he
could stagger under. So serious was the spinal trouble that
he was not expected to survive. One medical man after
another was consulted, but their treatment brought no
improvement. At last, when about sixteen years of age,
young Rogers heard from a neighbour who had been cured of
some bone disease, of the doctor who had treated her, Dr.
John Watkins by name, a cultured physician living in Falcon
Square. Rogers went to him, and the new treatment proved
gradually successful. The old man used to talk freely to the
lad. One day the doctor said that his eyes were somewhat
failing, would young Rogers come and read to him ? So on
Sunday mornings for four years Rogers made return to his
benefactor by reading aloud to him. He read him the church
newspapers, notably The Rock, and that paper's denun-
ciation of James Allanson Picton led to Rogers going to hear
the vilified preacher and to being profoundly impressed by him.
He also read Dr. Watkins the Prayer Book, and Dr. Watkins
turned the youth's attention to its beautiful English. So
began Mr. Rogers's devotion to Elizabethan literature, the
study of which has been his literary speciality. Meantime
Rogers had left ironmongery, and had begun to learn the
trade of vellum-binding. This he has regarded throughout
more as an art than as a craft. To this day he has something
of the same pleasure in handling a well and beautifully
bound volume as he has in inspecting a painting by one of the
old masters. But, as a friend once remarked, it was not
long before he devoted his attention to the insides as well as
the outsides of books. Reading was not then catered for as
now by free libraries at every corner. Mr. Rogers once told
his hearers at Browning Hall how vividly he remembered the
first day that the Guildhall Library was opened to the public,
and how eagerly he availed himself of the opportunity of
entering. He selected as one of his first volumes Browning's
" Paracelsus," and was entirely lost to all sense of his sur-
roundings until the warning bell roused him to the unpleasant
In oublic consciousness that he must leave the building. He joined the
office. Vellum Binders' Trade Union in 1872, and became an officer
next year. In 1873 ne joined the Stationers' Friendly Society,
where again in a year he was elected officer. He was a
AN IDEAL SECRETARY 73
member of a School Board Management Committee which
had charge of four schools in Bethnal Green, and remained
a manager from 1872 to 1878. His connection with the
working men's club movement, which he supported with
great energy, led to his coming into touch with the late Dean
Stanley, and, along with other workmen, he used to be invited
to the Westminster Deanery. From 1877 to 1880 he was
president of the East London Workmen's Club. When the
University Extension movement was mooted, Mr. Rogers u n j vers ity
was one of its first and most ardent supporters. He joined the extensionist.
East London University Extension Society in 1877. Of that
committee Rev. S. A. Barnett was chairman, Leonard Monte-
fiore was secretary, and in the following year Mr. Rogers
became joint secretary with Alfred Milner, afterwards Lord
Milner. In 1885 Mr. Rogers relinquished the secretaryship
and became vice-chairman. It should be remembered that
out of this society grew Toynbee Hall. In 1882 he entered
the Co-operative movement, and in 1885 assisted in founding
the Co-operative Bookbinders' Society in Bloomsbury. Mr.
Rogers has thus had intimate acquaintance from the inside of
the three great groups of organized Labour — the Trade Union,
the Friendly Society, and the Co-operative Society. During Q n ress an( j
these years Mr. Rogers became widely known as an acceptable platform,
lecturer. He also began to write for the Press. The first
payment he received for any article was for one in the Pall
Mall Gazette when Mr. W. T. Stead was editing it, in 1884.
During 1884 to 1886 he contributed many articles on Labour
questions to the Weekly Dispatch, when Mr. Fox Bourne
was editor, over the signature of " An Artisan." In one of
these papers, written in 1885, Mr. Rogers drafted a scheme
for the formation of a Labour Party in the House of Com-
mons. This is said to be the first scheme of the kind
propounded by an English workman. He also wrote a series
of papers on education in the Weekly Dispatch in the years
1887-8. He has in his time written for many magazines, and
often articles of a lighter character, such as short stories. In
1886 he became vice-president of the Elizabethan Society, and An
conducted a class of young men at Toynbee Hall who were "Elizabethan"
engaged in studying English literature.
In 1888 he declined a lucrative appointment as lecturer for
the then newly-formed Unionist Party. It was well for the
life-work that waited for him that he did thus retain his
freedom from Party connections. He accepted instead the
post of journeyman binder at the London branch of the
Co-operative Printing Society, and held that position for two
years, when he became foreman, only relinquishing that
74 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
A Leading
Trade
Unionist.
position to assume the office of secretary to the National
Pensions Committee. His relation to the Co-operative
movement was much more than that of a salaried official. He
has spoken and lectured in the interests of Co-operation all
over the South of England. In 1888 Mr. Rogers gave
practical vent to his Elizabethan enthusiasm by taking the
lead in an agitation for the erection of the Marlowe Memorial
at Canterbury. Of the committee formed for this purpose
Mr. Rogers was secretary, Lord Coleridge was chairman,
and Mr. Sidney Lee was treasurer. The Memorial was
eventually unveiled in September, 1892, by Sir Henry Irving.
Rogers knew Coleridge and Irving very well ; and Mr. Sidney
Lee and he have been friends since they met in their youth.
The shilling Browning published by Messrs. Smith, Elder
and Co. was the outcome of an agitation started by the
Elizabethans at Toynbee Hall. The first two signatures of
the petition to Robert Barrett Browning for this publication
were those of Canon Barnett and Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers
was also chairman of the committee which arranged for the
enriching of St. Saviour's Church, South wark, in 1896, with
a memorial window to Philip Massinger.
His first visit to the Trade Union Congress was in 1892, when
he went as delegate of the Vellum Binders. Next year occurred
the great strike of bookbinders (1891-2). His own trade, the
vellum-binding, being the smallest section, was very hard hit.
In 1 88 1 Mr. Rogers was elected to the presidency of their
Union, and held it for six years. When he entered this
office the Union was all but bankrupt, and two-thirds of its
members were out of work. Almost alone, he waged a Press
warfare against the Government monopoly of thirty years'
standing, and finally, by arranging for questions in the House
of Commons and by deputations to Ministers, broke down the
monopoly. Before he had been president two years all members
of his Union were at work, and the Union has prospered ever
since. In 1895 the Trade Union Congress at Cardiff adopted
the policy which excluded from the Congress all save actual
working members of a trade or officials of Trade Unions.
This led to a vigorous controversy between Mr. Rogers and
Mr. John Burns in the columns of the Daily Chronicle. As
may be imagined, Mr. Burns 's expression of opinion did not
lack vehemence or pungency. But, happily, the result of the
quarrel between these two Labour leaders was that they
became fast friends.
As one glances back over this full and varied career, one
sees that no piece of public work to which Mr. Rogers has
put his hand had attained other than satisfactory progress or
a successful conclusion.
G EORGE CADBURY.
CHAPTER XVIII
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
The Sunday following Mr. Rogers's appointment I spent
as guest of the Cadburys. In the morning I visited the Adult
School, of which Mr. George Cadbury was head. It was
interesting to see the men who week by week came under the
influence of that many-sided saint, whose devotion to the Son
of Man is felt in every movement of social reform.
At the close he introduced me to the school in words too
generous for me to repeat— save in part, and in that part
only as showing how our movement hitherto had impressed
itself on his judgment. But for these Conferences, he per-
ceived, the Government would never have reopened the
question of Pensions. He put this conviction in a personal
way that more than startled me. He introduced me as the
man who had brought the strongest Government of modern
times to its knees !
I was crushed and humiliated : who could be otherwise
under the circumstances ? Yet I was inly glad that the
Power which had deigned to use me was felt and owned. I
could only turn to the great words of Paul, and read as lesson,
" God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty ; and base things of the world,
and things which are despised, hath God chosen ; yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are :
that no flesh should glory in His presence." Then I spoke
of the Adult Schools and of the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon
meetings as two phases and suggestions of that vast Labour
Movement in Religion to which the future belonged.
On reaching home after service, Mr. Cadbury and I talked
over the origins of the movement which had expressed itself
in the Tsar's appeal for a reduction of armaments, and went
on to speak in general of the initiative that comes through
prayer. Then the conversation reverted to Pensions. Our
Executive, I may say, had expressed a desire that, somehow
or other, Mr. Chamberlain should be approached and made
With the
Cadburys.
" To confound
the things that
are mighty."
The telephone
from
Headquarters.
75
76 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
A startling
suggestion.
Supposing.
At whose
door?
to feel the volume and force of the purpose that animated the
Labour world in the direction of Old Age Pensions for All.
It was felt that if he only knew the backing which the Govern-
ment would receive from the working classes if it proceeded
to legislate as they desired, we should not have long to wait
for an Old Age Pensions Act.
Suddenly Mr. Cadbury turned to me and said, " Mr.
Chamberlain is at Highbury to-day. Shall I drive you over
to see him and put the case to him? "
I was naturally taken aback. " I am afraid," I said,
" that — if I may exercise my ordinary reason in the matter — -
a Stead would hardly be a persona grata at Highbury : I am
afraid that my name would scarcely make Mr. Chamberlain
look with more favour on the idea of immediate Pensions
legislation. But," I continued, "you are at the Telephone
in this matter, not I. If you feel I ought to go, if you have
orders to that effect, I will go, whatever one's carnal reason
may say to the contrary."
The very suddenness of the challenge had startled me.
Mr. Cadbury 's reply reassured me. He was not, he said,
conscious of any Imperative in the direction indicated. So
the matter dropped.
But the thought has often recurred to me since : what
might have been if we had gone.
Supposing Mr. Chamberlain had been as much impressed
as other men by the story of our Conferences. Supposing he
had been made to feel that if he at once introduced a bold
instalment of Universal Pensions he would have the solid
and enthusiastic support of the entire Labour world. Suppos-
ing this conviction had diverted his attention homewards
from the internal affairs of the Transvaal. Supposing it had
absorbed him in immediate legislation on behalf of the aged.
What might not have happened?
Would there have been no South African War?
Would the first Pensions Act have been dated 1900?
Would the poor old folks have been saved eight or nine
years' addition to their misery?
These speculations belong to the nebulous region of what
might have been.
In the real world, the stubborn facts remain.
Mr. Chamberlain was not drawn off the South African trail.
The claims of the Outlanders abroad were not postponed to
the interests of the old folks at home.
War came.
And as a consequence Pensions were put off for many
weary years.
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 77
It is not part of my purpose to discuss here at whose door
the crime of the South African War must be laid.
Suffice it to say that whoever were responsible, they have
to answer not merely for vast destruction of life and wealth
in South Africa, but also for the prolongation of the suffer-
ings of more than a million aged men and women in the
British Isles.
CHAPTER XIX
BY-PRODUCTS OF THE MOVEMENT
Hints to As yet the wareloud had not burst. The National Corn-
Helpers, mittee went gaily to work, sanguine of early legislative
results. Mr. Rogers sent circulars to every accessible body
in the Trade Union, Co-operative or Friendly Society
groups, inviting affiliation and subscription. Association
with any political parties was precluded by our constitution.
And as agitation in this country did usually proceed along
Party channels, our method of propaganda needed to be made
explicit. I accordingly drew up a leaflet entitled " Hints for
a Helper," of which 5,000 copies were printed. The most
important suggestions may here be placed on record as a sign
of the new order of working : —
How to Begin. " First of all get to know what is being done to push the
Pensions movement in your Trade Union, Friendly Society,
Co-operative Society, and in your district. Our organizing
secretary, if you write to him, will be glad to give you this
information, and to put you in touch with friends of the
movement in your circle or neighbourhood. Then begin with
organized Labour. In your own Trade Union, local or dis-
trict, warmly support any resolution enforcing our demand
which may come from the headquarters of the Union ; and to
any inquiry as to local opinion which may be sent from head-
quarters, see that an answer can be returned in favour of our
demand.
" If the first step has not been thus suggested, take the
initiative yourself. See that every member of your branch
Union has a copy of our leaflet, ' The Case Briefly Stated. '
Quantities of this leaflet will be sent free — carriage forward —
by our organizing secretary for purposes of distribution. Get
members to buy a copy of the penny pamphlet by Mr.
Charles Booth, entitled " Pensions for All in Old Age." Of
this, and of other printed matter which the National Com-
mittee may issue from time to time, our organizing secretary
will supply copies as required.
78
BY-PRODUCTS OF THE MOVEMENT 79
" Personally approach every official and every member of
much influence, and especially everyone likely to misunder-
stand or oppose the movement. Ply them with printed
matter and personal persuasion. Saturate the membership
and the official circle with the idea. Then if, as our experi-
ence leads us to expect, the general feeling is favourable,
submit to a regular meeting our circular inviting affiliation,
and move a resolution approving the demand of the National
Committee and deciding to affiliate. See that this resolution,
if carried, is forwarded to our organizing secretary, to the
local press, to the local Trades Council, to the local Members
of Parliament, and to the secretary of your national Union.
" In your Friendly Society take similar steps, so far as its
constitution allows.
" So with your Co-operative Society.
"To win over the Trades Council of the neighbourhood, see
the secretary, president, and other leading officials personally.
Talk over the question with them ; leave them plenty of
printed matter.
" You will now have formed a local knot of members of A local knot.
Trade, Friendly, and Co-operative Societies who are ready to
act together in furtherance of our movement.
" Approach public bodies. Get to know whether the local
Board of Guardians has voted on the Pensions question. If
you think the Board likely to yield a strong vote in our favour,
get an able Guardian to move your resolution.
" Wait upon the editors of the most influential newspapers
of any party. Meet them privately as men to men. Lay on
their consciences the sad plight of the more than a million
aged poor.
" Invoke religious bodies. In the name of the poor and Appeal to
them that labour and are heavy laden, wait upon ecclesiastical piety,
leaders such as the chief local dignitary of the Roman Catholic
Church, of the Church of England, and of the dissenting
bodies. Wait also on the most numerously attended and the
most influential preachers of any persuasion, and ask them to
direct the attention of their congregations to the duty of
making better national provision for the aged. Wait in the
same way upon every important religious gathering, such as
the Diocesan Council and the Free Church Council. If the
Church Congress or other denominational union should meet
in your neighbourhood, approach them where possible
through friends of our movement belonging to the denomina-
tion. Work through the local P.S.A. federation, and the
association of Adult Schools, to secure expressions of sym-
pathy with our demand. These meetings of religious bodies.
80 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
if you cannot get them to endorse our principle, can hardly
refuse to pass such a resolution as that which was unanimously
adopted by the Congregational Union of England and Wales
in May, 1S99. Take care that such a vote is made known
widely.
No party! ' ' Caution ! Keep yourself carefully from entangling alliances
with any political parties. Our demand is not a partisan one.
It is supported by men of different parties, and our movement
must be colour-blind to party distinctions. Our appeal is to
' good men in all parties.'
" So long as this is clearly understood there can be no harm
in plying local M.P. 's and Parliamentary candidates with
questions, arguments, and information; or in approaching
local party leaders ; or in addressing party meetings.
" Get up local facts. Collect all useful information on the
problem of Old Age in your neighbourhood.
" Whenever you begin to feel tired of working for this
movement, just think what you would do to save one poor old
friend, your father or mother maybe, from the shame of the
workhouse, from the inquisition of Bumble, or the ignominy
of private ' charity. ' You would not mind putting yourself
seriously about for the sake of that one person. Then remem-
ber that in this movement you are working to save not one,
but at the least one million old men and women from such a
fate."
So the Labour world and the religious world were being
steadily permeated with our arguments and demands.
Deport on With commendable despatch, on July 26th, 1899, three
"The Aged months after its appointment, the Select Committee on the
Deserving «< ^g, ec j Deserving Poor " presented its Report. The gist of
its recommendations were to the effect that " it is practicable
to create a workable system of Pensions for the United King-
dom " and " that the attempt should be made." It offered a
svstem of its own. It would elect in every Poor Law Union
a Pension Authority appointed by the Guardians and for the
most part composed of Guardians. It would entitle to a
pension anv person (man or woman) who satisfies the Pension
Authority that he (1) is a British subject; (2) is 65 years of
age ; (3) has not within the last twenty years been convicted
of an offence and sentenced to penal servitude or imprison-
ment without the option of a fine ; (4) had not received poor
relief other than medical relief, unless under circumstances of
a wholly exceptional character, during twenty years prior to
the application for a pension ; (5) is resident within the district
of the Pension Authority ; (6) has not an income from any
Seven meshes, source of more than ten shillings a week ; and (7) has
BY-PRODUCTS OF THE MOVEMENT 81
endeavoured to the best of his ability, by his industry, or
by the exercise of reasonable providence, to make provision
for himself and those immediately dependent on him. The
amount of the pension would be not less than 5s. and not
more than 7s. a week, to be determined by the Pension
Authority according to the local cost of living. The pension
would be paid through the Post Office. The cost should be
defrayed from the common fund of the Union, and an
Imperial contribution not exceeding half the total amount.
The Report was eagerly bought up within a few hours of
publication, and two fresh editions had soon to be printed.
Its general relation to our movement was expressed in the Views of
following memorandum adopted by the Executive on National
September 23rd :— Committee.
" We welcome the appearance of this Report as a gratify-
ing sign of the progress which has been made on the Pensions
question during the last twelve months. A year ago Lord
Rothschild's Committee reported against all Pension
schemes submitted to it, and the Government seemed to
acquiesce in this negative finding. This year Mr. Chaplin's
Committee declares Old Age Pensions practicable, recom-
mends that an attempt should be made to introduce them, and
actually propounds a scheme for their adoption. Treasury
experts are, consequently, investigating its financial feasi-
bility. This remarkable change is, in the judgment of the
Executive, to be attributed principally to two causes — the
one direct, the other indirect. The indirect cause is the
Workmen's Compensation Act, which has brought about, or
threatens to bring about, the much earlier superannuation of
large numbers of workmen. The direct cause is the action
taken by the working classes themselves, which appeared in
the Seven Conferences held with Mr. Charles Booth during
last winter, and which has resulted in the formation of the
National Committee of Organised Labour. A great stride
forward has been taken towards our goal ; at the same time
the recommendations fall far short of what the situation
requires. We object at the outset to the title ' deserving. '
To distinguish between ' desert ' and ' ill-desert ' in such a
matter, except in the most arbitrary manner, is beyond the
competence of State functionaries ; and ' desert ' is ill-
rewarded by being forced to expose its misery to the gaze of
Poor Law inquisitors. We oppose the formation of local
Pension Authorities as a costly, clumsy and unnecessary
piece of administrative machinery. We object to its close
connection in origin and personnel with the Poor Law
Guardians. We object to the proposed inquirv into ' desert.'
G
82 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
At the Trade
Union
Congress.
Resolution.
We insist on the severance between Old Age Pensions and
Poor Law administration being as complete as possible. We
oppose the limitations based on income as well as those based
on ' desert. ' To refuse a pension to all persons in receipt of
ios. a week from other sources is to discourage thrift after
gs. i id. has been secured. This proviso shows a ludicrous
lack of thorough thinking. The difficulties in which the pro-
posals are involved only throw into greater clearness the
simplicity, justice, and feasibility of our demand for a free
State pension for everyone on attaining a given age."
So far as the working classes of the country were con-
cerned, the Report of Mr. Chaplin's Committee fell dead from
the press. This was shown at the Trade Union Congress
held at Plymouth in September. It was the first gathering of
the Parliament of Labour since our movement had begun. It
revealed a new spirit which had come over the Labour world.
Pensions were prominently to the fore. Resolutions
embodying the demand formulated by our Committee had
been sent up by Burnley weavers, London barge-builders, and
builders' labourers. The resolution actually moved by Mr.
Steadman, M.P., and seconded by Mr. Stevenson, ran as
follows : —
" That in the opinion of this Congress no scheme dealing
with Old Age Pensions will be satisfactory to the whole of the
workers in this country which makes it a condition of thrift
or disregards the inability of a large proportion of the indus-
trious and deserving poor to make provision for the future :
that the age limit be 60 years of age or, in the event of a
person becoming incapacitated from following his or her
employment, the same to take effect from the time he or she
became incapacitated ; and that the Parliamentary Committee
take such steps to make this question one of such prominence
as to become one of the most pressing subjects at the next
Parliamentary Election."
The motion was carried with absolute unanimity, not a
hand in all the crowded benches of the Congress being held
up against it.
That was an experience which has been repeated at every
Trade Union Congress from that day to this. The wonder
of the unanimity soon passed. The Pensions resolution
became a " hardy annual," the voting for which grew to be
almost mechanical. The age limit on which the Congress
insisted was five years lower than we had, as a matter of
compromise, agreed upon ; but about the main principle there
has never been an iota of difference of opinion since Mr.
Booth came to Browning Hall.
BY-PRODUCTS OF THE MOVEMENT
83
Needless to say that Mr. Rogers was everywhere at the
Congresses, and our printed matter was in everyone's
hands.
The Plymouth Congress of 1899 is memorable for another
and pregnant proof which it offered of the unitive trend which
our movement had evoked in British Labour. In July, 1898,
as I have earlier remarked, the British Labour world was a
heap of warring fragments. The break-up of the International
Labour Congress painfully illustrated its divided condition.
In December, 1898, our series of Conferences began. To
the great surprise at first of those participating, these Con-
ferences brought together representatives of all the previously
antagonistic sections of the Trade Union group : went further,
and combined, although in unequal proportions, the three
groups — Trade Unions, Co-operative Societies, and Friendly
Societies, which had not been before united ; and elicited from
the combination so formed a complete unanimity : a unanimity
which was not merely a unity of opinion but a unity of
purpose. And the men who had so come together were
leaders in their several connections.
It is pleasant to remember that, after the chaos of July,
1898, the Labour world first drew together, not in order to
protect its own organized interests, not to maintain any ism
or speculative doctrine of society, but to enforce a great
humanitarian demand. It is interesting to observe that just
as the religious world was being split into angry fragments
over the children, the old folks were uniting the industrial
world.
But the agreement thus precipitated on one point could not
fail to extend to others. Having come from all sections and
groups of Labour, having stood together on the Pensions plat-
form, having moreover by their unanimity " brought to its
knees the strongest Government of modern times " and
re-opened the whole question of State support for the aged,
Labour leaders naturally felt the pleasure and power of
cohesion : could not easily maintain the old separateness, and
came to aspire after a new synthesis.
So at Plymouth the resolution was carried —
"That this Congress, having regard to its decisions in
former years, and with a view to securing a better representa-
tion of the interests of Labour in the House of Commons,
hereby instructs the Parliamentary Committee of all the
Co-operative, Socialist, Trade LTnions, and other working
organizations to jointly co-operate on lines mutually agreed
upon, in convening a special congress of representatives from
such of the above-named organizations as may be willing to
How the
Labour world
solidified.
Genesis of the
L.R.C.
84 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Parliament. he beginning of the
As everyone now knows, tms
Labour Party.
CHAPTER XX
ROMAN CARDINAL AND ANGLICAN CONGRESS
Next to the forces of organized Labour in the order of our Organized
friendly attack stood the forces of organized Religion. The Religion.
Congregational Union had already declared itself. The
Wesleyan Conference was approached, also the Baptist
Union. The more compactly unified churches were found
more easy to reach.
At the Catholic Congress at the end of July, Cardinal
Vaughan had spoken in a vein that recalled the leading
utterances of his great predecessor, Cardinal Manning. Dr.
Vaughan described the workhouse as now the national The Cardinal's
refuge for the poor, but observed that the poor feel dis- strong plea,
honoured in accepting this change offered them for the lands
and houses of which they indirectly were robbed in the
sixteenth century. He then went on to say — and his words
are worthy to be put on lasting record — " They hoped that
the Old Age Pension scheme might bring at least some
remedy for this state of things, but it would depend upon the
Pensions being sufficient to keep its recipient in frugal com-
fort. The well-to-do were afraid of its cost, but surely the
rich were bound to tax themselves, or to be taxed, for their
poorer brethren. He was always at a loss to understand
why the colossal incomes should not be taxed at a higher
rate than say the net average income of the upper classes.
It was fitting that surplus and extravagance should be more
heavily taxed than ordinary and legitimate expenditure."
As might be expected, after this utterance we had no
difficulty in securing a hearing at the Archbishop's House,
Westminster.
I had had an audience of the Cardinal four years pre-
viously. I had brought before him the proposal that Catholic
priests should be permitted to join with Anglicans and
Nonconformists in meetings called to express the desire
'that they may all be one." His Eminence cordially
approved the idea. Coming now, on September 30th, to
86 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
To a
deputation
from labour.
The people
being " used
up.
Promised
Support.
give a more practical expression of the same purpose, I was
grieved to notice how shrunken and physically feeble was
the man before us, in comparison with the stalwart and
commanding figure I had first met. I had the pleasure of
introducing a deputation of ten leading members of our
committee. We were very graciously received, and after
Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Mitchell had spoken,
the Cardinal replied in sympathetic terms. He said he
" wanted a good deal of converting " before he could accept
Mr. Booth's proposals. He suggested a pension of 7/- or
10/- to every poor person in need of assistance who applied
at the workhouse. In any case, he said he felt more strongly
than he could say the obligation to unite with his working
brethren, and to assist them by every means available to
make their lives brighter and happier, to give them more
time for themselves, for the cultivation of their minds and the
practice of their religion ; and especially to withdraw from
them that horrible nightmare of sorrow and of suffering in
old age coming from destitution. It should never be for-
gotten in this country which lived by its manufactures, that
the population was being used up before its time. Men and
women were used, and thrown aside. He could not under-
stand how any person connected with trade, manufactures
and commerce, could be deaf to the claim which the aged
working men and working women of this country had upon
them.
In thanking His Eminence, I ventured to remark that it
would be a formidable undertaking to convert a Cardinal.
To this he replied, " Cardinals have a very open mind, and
are always ready to be converted to the truth "; and went
on to illustrate the remark by saying that if in the course of
six months no other scheme more to his mind were brought
forward, he would support our scheme, because, although he
did not think it ideally the best, it was the only scheme in
possession, and the one which must be pushed forward.
As the months passed, and no other scheme with strong
backing was advanced, we felt we could fairly lay claim to
His Eminence's support. Certainly we have never had
anything but sympathy from the Roman clergy ; and this
happy result we have held to be largely due to the Cardinal's
utterance.
After bidding him farewell, we were shown over the West-
minster Cathedral, then approaching completion, by Mr.
Coffey, a Catholic member of our deputation, and a most
untiring advocate of Pensions.
After the Roman came the Anglican hearing. Mr. Rogers,
ROMAN CARDINAL AND ANGLICAN CONGRESS 87
already well known on the platforms of the Christian Social Mr. Rogers in
Union, was invited to address the Church Congress at its Albert Hal1 -
London session on October 13th. It was at a mass meeting
in the Albert Hall that he spoke, and he aroused the great
audience to immense enthusiasm. After stating the case of
the aged, Mr. Rogers closed with this eloquent appeal : —
" This effort to obtain a national scheme of relief for the
poverty which brings grey hairs in sorrow to the grave, is as
some of us think, the initial step in that social legislation
which will take us past the arid and barren regions of
political Party strife, from which no inspiration ever springs
or any great idea ever grows. By its ancient and far-
reaching parish organization, by its myriad social activities,
and the experience which the working of them have brought
to its members, the Anglican Church is well fitted to take a
prominent part in these newer developments in our national
life. It may be that of late her channels of moral and
spiritual inspiration have been choked by the dust of small
detail and trivial thought. Let us, in the face of the myriad
evils that lie like a leprosy on the body of this our nation,
leave these things behind. Let us pass beyond the region of
the infinitely little, let us try the magic of great ideas."
One of the first speakers in the discussion which followed
was, picturesquely enough, Canon Blackley, " perhaps," as
he said, " the first man in England to propose a system of
national pensions." The Canon did indeed represent the old
order : insisted that the people could independently provide
for themselves ; cried for " less beer and tobacco " and more
"thrift"; and protested against Mr. Booth's scheme as
certain to end in tremendous financial embarrassment and
great personal demoralisation. Canon Scott Holland
rejoined that Mr. Rogers's paper " spoke for itself and
answered Canon Blackley beforehand."
But no votes are taken at the Church Congress.
D.—IN TIME OF WAR: THE TRIPLE
CROWN OF LABOUR ■
CHAPTER XXI
THE PRIMATE AS CHAMPION OF PENSIONS
War! The South African war began on October nth, 1899. It
was in October, 1898, that the New Zealand Act was passed.
In these twelve months Pensions had advanced from the
edge of despair to the eve of success. Had there been no
war, the Government could scarcely have avoided introducing
an Old Age Pensions Bill in 1900. But the movement,
which received its first impetus from the Antipodes,
received its first serious check from the Cape.
The Nation The need was unaltered, the remedy was undisputed, the
absorbed. argument was as unassailable as ever. But public attention
was focussed on " the Front." The light heart that looked
for immediate victory, and then the anguished alarm for the
safety of the Empire that set in after the horror of the
Black Week, were equally heedless of claims of social
reform. The newspapers that had been hospitable to letters
and news about Pensions were now constrained, by the
pressure of "battle, murder, and sudden death," to close
their columns to us. Many public men saw in the colossal
expenditure going on in the sub-continent good ground to
excuse themselves for years from so much as thinking
about Pensions. Too many of the rank and file of the
working classes were far more absorbed in the Modder
panics or Mafeking paeans than in any prospect, pleasant or
repellent, of distant old age.
The Labour leaders were happily less swayed by gusts of
popular passion than the bulk of the nation. They did not
lose heart about the reform which had once been so near
achievement. The National Committee, undeterred, went
88
THE PRIMATE AS CHAMPION OF PENSIONS 89
on quietly with its work. It stirred up the old local com-
mittees ; it established new in Leicester, Nottingham, and
Cardiff.
Mr. Rogers was indefatigable. He passed to and fro "A Tongue of
throughout the country like a flame of fire, kindling every- iire "
where an enthusiasm responsive to his own. It might be a
great Conference of associated wage-earners gathered from a
wide area, it might be a working men's debating club, or a
lecture in an out-of-the-way colliery village or rustic hamlet —
it mattered not. Wherever men asked to hear of Pensions,
there Mr. Rogers went, eloquent, stimulating, conclusive.
Old age he always championed, but he never failed to make
it the centre of a wide horizon of ennobling thought. The
principles he expounded laid the train for more extended
reforms.
Unable myself, from the prior claims of the Settlement, to Whom the
take a very active part in this itinerant advocacy, I was yet War-Drum
in the closest touch with Mr. Rogers throughout the agitation. c ? uld not
We saw each other at least once or twice every week, and
his vivid narrative kept me aware of all that was of moment
in his missionary tours. Mr. Barnes and Mr. Maddison — to
mention two other of our true allies — refused to be deafened
by the beating of the war drum, but persisted in carrying on
their Pensions propaganda.
Mr. Booth himself went down to a meeting in Sheffield
on December nth, in company with Miss Bondfield, Mr.
Rogers, and me, and a number of Yorkshire labour men ;
and with the Deputy Lord Mayor in the chair raised the
standard of Pensions in Hallamshire.
The 9th of January of the New Year (1900) the Depart- Departmental
mental Committee appointed to estimate the cost of the Committee on
scheme of the Select Committee issued its report. This may ^ ost *
be summarised in the following table : —
Estimated number of persons over 65
years of age in 1901 ... ... 2,016,000
Deduct : —
For those whose incomes exceed 10/-
a week : in England and Ireland,
37 per cent. ; in Scotland, 35 per cent. 741,000
For paupers in England, 27 per
cent. ; in Scotland, 16 per cent. ;
in Ireland, 25 per cent. ... ... 515,000
For aliens, criminals, and lunatics 32,000
9o HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
For inability to comply with thrift test,
10 per cent. ... ... ... 72,700
Total deductions ... ... 1,360,700
Estimated number of pensionable persons
Estimated cost
Add administrative expenses (3 per
cent.)
Total estimated cost ...
In round figures
655,000
£9,976,000
299,000
£10,275,000
£10,300,000
A Report of
real value.
Labour
Manifesto.
Labour at
Lambeth
Palace.
This Report was of immensely greater value than the
Report of the Select Committee. Now, for the first time,
thanks to the experts of the Treasury, the country had before
it a classification of all the aged, with an estimate of the
numbers in each class. It was possible to form some tenta-
tive conception of its possible cost.
The annual cost of a limited scheme being thus put at
£10,300,000, and that being regarded as at present
unattainable, it was easy to exclaim, How much less attain-
able was a universal scheme !
These objections, though enforced by the enormous cost
of the war, in no way daunted the National Committee.
Fourteen days later it brought out a manifesto, signed by
forty prominent representatives of Labour organizations,
enforcing the urgency of the demand for Pensions for all in
their old age. It was probably as influentially-signed a
document as ever issued from the camp of British labour. It
was published in full, with all the names attached, on January
25th, 1900, in The Times — a newspaper which has been more
ready to grant us the courtesy of its columns than many a
" progressive " print.
The next important success awaited us at Lambeth Palace.
Mr. Rogers had arranged with the Archbishop of Canter-
bury to receive a deputation on January 27th (1900). It was,
I understand, the first Labour deputation of moment that had
waited on any English Primate in his historic abode. It
consisted of Rogers, Barnes, Crooks, Coffey, Dew, Freake,
Garretty, Lamb, Masterson, Stevenson, and me. We
went with some measure of trepidation. Dr. Temple was
reputed to be quite capable of lecturing us all like a pack of
THE PRIMATE AS CHAMPION OF PENSIONS 91
schoolboys, and sending us home with painful memories.
We had no idea how he stood on the question. He had,
of course, been supplied with our printed matter, and
Rogers, Barnes, and Garretty put the case forcibly. Then
His Grace replied. To our utter surprise and delight he came
over to us, horse, foot, and artillery. What he said was in
the main exactly what we had most wished to hear. On
several moot points he sided with the National Committee.
He believed in self-help and self-restraint, he said ; he wel-
comed every rise in wages as enabling men the better to
provide for themselves. But he recognised the infirm and
the aged as a class demanding exceptional treatment. There-
fore he approved of making the experiment of granting
Pensions to all in their old age. " I agree," His Grace went
on, " with those who maintain that it is of no use saying,
' We will grant Pensions to those who deserve them,' because
I see no mode of measuring the desert. There is no kind
of tribunal that I can see to be entrusted with such an
inquiry. I believe it would be better to give up all idea of
that kind, and simply say that everybody who demands his
5s. a week shall have it." Supposing a million persons
applied for a pension, His Grace went on, the cost would be
thirteen millions. It would be a considerable addition to
our present taxation, but, he added, " I am not at all saying
we could not bear it. I think we could. " It would be difficult
to induce the country to grant so large a sum. We should
have to fight the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We needed
to be very persistent. His Grace concluded with the memor-
able words, " I hope that what I have said may be of use to
you. Of course, it is a matter for the House of Commons,
and not for the Lords, but you may depend upon it that in
anything that comes before Parliament, if it reaches the
House of Lords at all, I should be very ready to defend very
strongly what is now sought for by you, and to give it my
vote."
Here indeed was progress.
The first vote in Parliament that had been explicitly pro-
mised to us was a vote, not in the Commons, but in the
Peers ; and it was promised us, not by a Liberal Peer, or an
insignificant independent Peer, but by the Primate of all
England !
The deputation was then entertained to tea by Dr. and
Mrs. Temple, and was afterwards shown round the Palace.
The Archbishop told the story of his early struggles with
poverty ; of the time when he was too poor to afford a fire in
his room, and had to keep himself warm by heaping rugs
Dr. Temple on
"Desert."
Promise of
Speech and
Vote!
The Primate's
early poverty.
92 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
about his body. His guests were profoundly impressed.
The idea of the highest prelate of the Anglican Church
having once known by personal experience the meaning
of " hunger and cold " was probably new to most of them;
but, once grasped, it seemed to remove a whole world of
estrangement. The bringing of people usually remote into
close and friendly touch is one of the bye-products of our
agitation on which the heart can rest with thankful satis-
faction.
Three days afterwards came out the Queen's Speech,
which should have announced an Old Age Pensions Bill, but
which curtly declared " The time is not propitious for any
domestic reforms which involve a large expenditure."
CHAPTER XXII
SILVER LINING TO THE WAR-CLOUD
War-fever and Queen's Speech notwithstanding, the forces L.R.C. formed,
that made for social reform did not halt in their march.
Next month — February, 1900 — saw the birth of the Labour
Representation Committee. This body was the outcome of
the resolution of the Plymouth Congress in the previous
September, of which I have already spoken. It further
embodied the unitive purpose which found expression nine
months earlier in our National Committee. It began by
combining Trade Unions, branches of the Independent
Labour Party, and the Social Democratic Federation, and
at the end of its first year numbered 375,000 members in its
affiliated organizations. In the light of what I have pre-
viously said as to the relation of the two movements, no
small significance attaches to the choice of first Chairman
by the Labour Representation Committee. Frederick Rogers chairman,
was chosen for that office.
Was it not noteworthy?
When Labour men of all sections united to secure fuller
representation in Parliament, they found their first year's
Chairman — aye, and their second year's Treasurer — in the
Organizing Secretary of the Pensions Committee. And it
will not be forgotten that Mr. Rogers was the first English
workman to suggest in print the formation of a Labour Party
in the House of Commons.
It may also be remembered that when the General Federa-
tion of Trade Unions was called into being, our Convener
for Scotland, Mr. Isaac Mitchell, was called from Glasgow
to be its first Secretary.
In Scotland our next important move was made. It had Scottish
always been our policy to win over the great representative Trade Union
Congresses to our cause, and to " keep them won over," as k 011 * 1 ' 688,
Americans would say. The English Trade Union Congress
being secured, Mr. Rogers went across the Border in April
to secure, if possible, the Scottish Trade Union Congress,
93
94 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
which was then meeting in Edinburgh. As he was not a
delegate, the standing orders were suspended in order to
allow him to speak. But the discussion which followed his
moving address showed that the Congress was not yet
ready to go as far as its Southron counterpart. With
Scottish caution, the resolution only stated " that the time
had come for the Government to bring in a Bill to further a
system of Old Age Pensions." Nevertheless, the vote in its
favour was unanimous, and Mr. Rogers had made effective
use of spoken and printed word. To our stock of the latter
was now added a pamphlet containing a reprint of Arch-
bishop Temple's speech, and a memorandum to Mr. A. J.
Balfour on the whole question by Mr. Rogers.
The Trade Union group of organized Labour was now
safely grappled to our cause with hooks of steel. The next
great group to be approached was the Co-operative. And
at the Co-operative Congress held in Cardiff, June 5th, 1900,
Mr. Rogers was given a sympathetic hearing.
Our first The first annual meeting of the National Committee was
annual held in the Birmingham Temperance Hall on July 21st.
meeting. j was asked to present a survey of " the position and
prospects of Old Age Pensions." It is perhaps of value to
recall how we worked under the war-cloud, by citing here
some things that were said then : —
" A friend said to me the other week, ' The War will
have knocked the bottom out of your Old Age Pensions
movement. ' That remark expresses an opinion which we
know to be common, but which we know also to be mis-
taken. The War has undoubtedly slackened the pace of
our movement. It has deferred the hope, aroused by the
Peace Conference, of a diversion of national expenditure
from armaments to Pensions. It has absorbed the interest
and energy of the nation to an extent which left little spirit
for social reform. But its effects on our movement have not
been wholly negative. It has deepened that sense of national
unity which, when turned into home channels, ought to
show itself in a livelier feeling of responsibility for the
condition of the aged Briton. It has suggested that since
millions of money are freely spent in order to give the
franchise to a few thousand Outlanders, other millions might
be spent in order to keep the franchise for aged fellow-
subjects at home who are now robbed of their vote on receipt
What the War °^ P ar ish relief. Taxation for war may at first sight seem
had done for us. to make taxation for Pensions less possible, but a closer
view suggests just the opposite conclusion. The expenditure
forced up for the young man in khaki may be kept up for
SILVER LINING TO THE WAR CLOUD 95
the old man in fustian. Vast increase of expenditure is
more easily effected by war than by any peaceful purpose ;
but the peaceful purpose may be powerful enough to prevent
a great expenditure from falling, which it could never have
raised in the first instance. The war has also shown that
the nation can bear without bankruptcy or serious inconve-
nience a very much heavier burden of taxation than had
been supposed. The old argument against Pensions, that
'we can't afford the outlay,' has certainly had its bottom
knocked out by the war.
" Another powerful element in the situation to-day is
Imperialism. The vastness and splendour of our world-
girdling dominion, which burst like an apocalypse upon the
mind of this country at the Diamond Jubilee, were made
many times more impressive by the rally of the Colonies to
the help of the Mother Country on the field of battle.
'The new-found enthusiasm for Greater Britain promises to Imperial
be a distinct help to our cause. It need not, and it will not initiative,
be limited to the military exploits of colonists ; it will extend
to their yet nobler achievements in the field of social legis-
lation. The progress of Pensions in the Colonies has made
the movement at home more rapid.
"Foreign affairs and military questions do certainly threaten
to overshadow the demands of home legislation for some
considerable time to come. This is a fact to be sincerely
deplored. But the balance will right itself in time, and
internal reform must have its innings. Then will be the
time for enacting Pensions. I have consulted on this point a
variety of public men, journalists, Members of Parliament,
and Labour leaders. They one and all endorse the conclusion
which I had formed as an independent student of public
opinion : that, apart from foreign policy, and the military
policy it involves, there are two questions which surpass all The first
other questions in their hold on popular attention ; and these lvomc question,
two questions are — first, Pensions, and second, Housing.
At present, so far as we can see, we may accept it as a cer-
tainty that Pensions stand first among all the innumerable
claimants for home legislation. To have got the question
into this unrivalled prominence is to have registered no
small advance. Our own demand for universal Pensions has
made remarkable headway during the most exciting period
of the war. Other and rival projects have retired or been
abandoned. With the doubtful exception of the crude and
impracticable proposals of the Select Committee, there is no
other scheme than our own in possession of the field. We
have been mobilizing and consolidating our forces, we have
96 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Exeunt
Parties: enter
the Nation.
been advancing our lines as it were under cover of the
darkness ; and when the day returns, our position and our
strength will be an unexpected revelation to many.
" The paramountcy of Pensions among all home questions
is the more remarkable in that it has been attained without
the help of either of the great political Parties. By the
explicit avowals of leaders on both sides of the House our
question has been classed as non-partisan. The cynic might
say that this change of category only means that both
Parties have agreed to shelve the difficult problem. There is
indeed a danger of non-partisan measures being overlooked
amid the crowd of hotly-contested claims. But this is a
danger to which, as we have seen, Pensions have not suc-
cumbed ; and consequently I can only regard this elimination
of Party as an unmixed good. One Party or the other may
— or may not — be in power when the first Pensions Act is
passed ; but that accident does not affect the fact that the
motive power which pushes the Act through lies not among
partisan forces, but among the great neutral forces which
organize and operate irrespective of Party lines."
After referring to other possible auxiliary forces, I
proceeded : —
" No hopes which we may cherish concerning the
attitude of the Anglican hierarchy must be allowed for one
moment to supersede our own self-reliant effort. The
demands of organized Labour, organized Labour must itself
obtain. We reflect with pleasure upon the prestige and
power which accrue to our movement from the great names
which endorse it : names like those of Charles Booth in
social science, of George Cadbury in philanthropy, and of
Frederick Temple in religion , but we can never forget that
the key to the situation is in the position taken by the
Labour a unit, working classes. They, and they alone, can bring about
universal Pensions. United and resolute, they will win their
way and gain their goal. Divided and lethargic they will
fail. Now, so far as the leaders of Labour are concerned I
think we have every reason to congratulate ourselves. They
are practically solid on the question of Pensions. The
National Committee of Organized Labour is a most cheering
sign of the times. It combines men of all Parties in the
State, and pretty nearly all schools of economic thought.
Yet they have worked together with a unanimity unbroken,
and, so far as I know, unparalleled. During the whole
agitation, now extending over more than eighteen months,
I have never heard uttered so much as one angry word. The
committee has superseded the old and disastrous policy of
SILVER LINING TO THE WAR CLOUD 97
antagonism, within and without, by the spirit of conciliation
and amity. Of this new and happier temper our organizing
secretary is the very embodiment. So far as the leaders are
concerned the prospect is excellent. The great question,
which only time will answer, is : Will the rank and file
follow their leaders? The last word to the working classes
in a survey of the situation must be, ' Work out your own
salvation. '
"Yet not without hope of other and higher Assistance The note of
The record of our movement reads like a series of social destiny.
marvels. It has been made up of a procession of unanimities,
of unexpected combinations, of eminent and spontaneous
adhesions. I do not believe that these things are mere
increasing strength. They suggest a purpose and ' a tendency
increasing strength. The suggest a purpose and ' a tendency
not ourselves. ' They suggest that the incalculable Factor
in human affairs, the secret force of social evolution — what-
ever be the phrase which our ignorance or our reverence may
prefer — has taken the matter in hand, and will put it through.
The expectation of the aged poor shall not always fail nor
their hope perish."
In the course of this address I made one futile appeal. The cry for a
Emboldened by the courageous lead which Archbishop , p !\ cn
Temple had given, I asked, Would the Church of England
follow? Amid the break-up of the Party system, and in the
general despair of the mere politician, would she stand forth
as in the days of old, the champion of the suffering poor, and
secure for them in their feebleness that boon with which
cabal and caucus have hitherto only mocked them? Would
it not be possible for an Archbishop of Canterbury to intro-
duce into the House of Peers a short declaratory measure
which should include among the civil rights of Her Majesty's
subjects throughout the realm the right to a pension at a
given age? Financial effect to this declaration, of course,
could only be given by the House of Commons. But the
mere introduction of such a Bill would have an immense
effect. We needed a Magna Charta for the aged. Could
the Church of England produce another Stephen Langton?
I was sanguine enough to believe he might be found in the
bench of bishops.
Alas and alas ! No Stephen Langton has appeared. We In vain !
have had much valuable sympathy from the Bishops. But
the old folks of England owe their pensions in the main, not
to bishops, but to Labour leaders.
H
Shelving the
old folks.
How to
prevent it
CHAPTER XXIII
HOW WE FOUGHT THE GENERAL ELECTION, 1900
Signs were numerous that the long-expected General
Election was near at hand. So far as the Parties were con-
cerned, the war and its issues were certain to overshadow
and exclude all other questions. Neither side was likely to
lay much stress on social reform.
On August 4th the Local Government Board sent out a
circular to Boards of Guardians, ordering that the aged and
deserving poor should receive "different treatment from those
whose previous habits and character have not been satis-
factory. " This was plainly a concession to the movement
on behalf of the aged. Even so small a substitute for a
great reform was something to be thankful for. For, though
not much, it was all we were going to get. But the social
paralysis of Parties only made it more incumbent on our
non-partisan Committee to see that the claims of the aged
were not ignored in the coming fray.
Early in the year we had sent round to our members a
circular, some paragraphs of which may be quoted as indi-
cating the general line taken : —
" The National Committee, while desiring that the Pensions
question should be made a test question at the earliest possible
date, has not yet decided to make it a test question at the
impending elections.
" But whatever influence we possess, individually or
collectively, with any Party, or with the public unattached to
any Party, we are bound to use in order to force our demand
into the foreground of legislative attention.
"Prior to the selection of candidates for the Party to which
you may happen individually to belong, or with which you
may possess influence, your aim should be to get a resolution
passed by the Party Association affirming that it is highly
desirable to select a candidate prepared to give special
prominence in his programme to our demand of Pensions
for All.
98
GENERAL ELECTION OF i 9 oo 99
t.il 1 ^ ?' V CO , nSUltati ° n ° r deIib ^ation in which you may
S3-ff ' T k I * difficult for the Association to selecTa
candidate who does not support Pensions for All
In any case, see to it that every candidate in your district
is approached on the question. y aistnct
"Approach him whenever possible bv a dmiitari™ ~f
persons of the most influence inV constLeney bacS ™
by resolutions from every local body of waeel'rnerf t-Z
.he'otstio™-' ge ' a PLAIN and ST KAIGHT answer to Mm.
urn u answer,
.nnli r? retU o rned t0 Par,iamcnt ' vote for a measure embodying the
E?? ri fy BntiSh 8UbjeCt in thc United ****» shall, onTtta n-
«ng a g.ven age, be entitled to receive a Free Pension from the State'
wifh!! thC ^ nd j date P leads ] ack of information, provide him
with our printed matter, notably Mr. Booth's penny pamphlet
Mr. Barnes s leaflet, and our Manifesto for the General Eler
tion and secure appointment for later interview
See that the widest publicity is P-ivpn t^ \u~
sona^^y\o e ^rtrnte'„ce re a a n C d he p'res a s nd onTh POrta H nt J* °*««*
of insistm on the ion o?p::ltl™*iVo^:z mi,ma -
and effective attention from the electoral r.„i pron / lnent
persona, interview is impossib.e^mmun, te £&?" '
Use our printed matter freely '
"See that at least the most important public meeting „n
hal, ^ ' S ' U PP ied with copies, preferably eS t
hall of our Manifesto or Mr. Barnes's leaflet. S
publidy'^t'h'eTueition" 3 "" m ° Vement ' h ^ «**—
nr'l„ R ^^ EMBER '.° Ver a milIion «*" Mks, in workhouses
formulated and put before thf™. . T ? Ur demand was
Election, 1 reproSI« tte M^f^ h'e7e ?™ g "" Ge " eral
OLD AfiE PENSIONS FOR Alt. AN APPEAL TO THE ELECTOBS
Fellow Countrymen, ™-«wa.
In the approaching General Election many grave issues
ioo HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
will be submitted for your decision, but none will surpass in
importance that which relates to the condition of our aged
fellow-subjects.
Governmental inquiries have shown that considerably over
one-half of the population which has reached 65 years of age
is in want. More than a million aged persons in the United
Kingdom depend for bare subsistence on Poor Law relief,
with its consequent degradation and disfranchisement, or on
the scanty resources of over-burdened relatives, or on
"charity." Rather than bend to these humiliations, some
of the aged have chosen to starve.
We cannot look to Friendly Societies or Trade Unions
for a solution of the difficulty. Friendly Societies, with their
membership of 4,203,601, can only help Old Age by con-
tinuous sick pay, and on this side of their work are actuarially
unsound. Of Trade Unions, according to the last return,
yj per cent, of the unions are unable to make provision for
Old Age.
The neglect of our old people is nothing less than a public
disgrace. It is a shocking instance of national improvidence
in one of the richest peoples in the world.
It is grossly unjust. The aged Britons now in need built
up by their labour our industrial ascendancy, and produced
our swollen abundance.
It is unkind and inhuman. Honour and respect are the
tributes which naturally belong to age ; and common
humanity revolts at the thought of leaving those who are
past their strength to the ruthless ordeal of the struggle for
existence.
We appeal to all classes of the community to combine in
wiping out this blot upon our national escutcheon. Party
leaders on both sides of the House have declared that this is
no Party question, and have invited in its solution the co-
operation of good men in all Parties. It is our plain duty as
citizens to hesitate no longer, but to find some remedy.
Among the many remedies which have been suggested, we
can approve of no contributory scheme — i.e., no scheme
which, while endowing those who make independent pro-
vision for themselves, leaves untouched the great mass of the
labouring poor who cannot wisely afford to lay by, and shuts
out with them almost the whole of our working womanhood.
We resolutely oppose any State-provision for Old Age
which depends on such inquisition into present or previous
circumstances as is carried on by Poor Law officials or by
amateur associations for the detection of imposture. To
ascertain who are " deserving " and who are " undeserving "
GENERAL ELECTION OF 1900 IO i
is a task beyond the competence of human tribunals. When
the attempt is made, it generally confounds mere economic
and possibly selfish prudence with ethical desert ; and, in any
case, violates the chaste reticence of self-respecting poverty.
We refuse to punish " desert " by compelling it to lay bare
its sacredly-guarded secrets to the public gaze.
We repudiate every proposal to connect Old Age Pensions
with any Department, Board, officials, or methods distinctive
of the present Poor Law administration. We abjure Bumble
and all his works. No taint of pauperism must be allowed to
cling to the provision which the State confers on its veterans
of industry.
The only satisfactory solution which we have found is the
principle which entitles every British subject within the
United Kingdom, on attaining a given age, to a free pension
from the State. This principle, which has behind it the high
scientific authority of Mr. Charles Booth, has been endorsed
with impressive unanimity by a series of Conferences held in
the chief industrial centres, and representing with rare com-
pleteness the associated wage-earners of the nation, as they
are banded together in Trade, Friendly, and Co-operative
Societies.
We issue this appeal as officers of the body which was
constituted by these Conferences, and which is thereby entitled
to its name of
THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF ORGANIZED LABOUR.
Our policy is supported by the best known and most trusted
leaders of British Labour, and we are continually receiving
fresh adhesions from bodies of wage-earners throughout the
country.
To reduce the principle to practice, our Committee has
agreed upon 6 5 years as the qualifying age, and 5s. a week as
the uniform amount.
So specified, our demand involves, at most, an annual
expenditure of £26,000,000, and probably in anv case over
twenty-two millions sterling. Against this sum must be
placed as offset the saving which would result in indoor and
outdoor relief, as well as in the salaries of Poor Law officials,
and in other workhouse "establishment charges." The
balance to be defrayed out of the general revenues of the
State, local and imperial, remains undoubtedly large.
The scheme propounded by the Aged Deserving Poor
Committee of 1899 would, according to the report of a
Departmental Committee, cost in 1901 £10,300,000. It is
at first sight a cheaper scheme than ours, but what it seems
io2 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
to save in cost, it sacrifices in justice and in the self-respect
of the poor. And it raises many practical difficulties which
threaten to make it unworkable.
The amount we require is certainly not beyond the resources
of the wealthiest nation on this side of the globe. When
war breaks out, the British people authorise at once a colossal
outlay without waiting- to specify the precise taxes which
will have to be imposed. Even the most bellicose patriot
will hardly deny that the deliverance of a million aged Britons
from pauperism, disfranchisement, and other forms of
degrading dependence, is an object far superior to the
grounds on which most wars have been waged. It is not
our duty at this stage to indicate the ways and means by
which the millions needed for Old Age Pensions should be
raised. That is one of the things we keep statesmen for.
With all earnestness we urge this demand of humanity and
justice on the conscience of the nation. We appeal to
candidates for Parliament, and to electors of all Parties and
of none, to join in supporting it. We appeal to the Churches,
and to persons professing religious principle as the guide of
their lives, to judge by the highest standard of their faith
their present electoral duty to the Aged Poor. Be it remem-
bered that the Archbishop of Canterbury has promised, to a
Bill embodying our demand, his support and his vote.
We appeal above all to working men, and to societies
of working men, to use their overwhelming power in this
national crisis to secure the boon of pensions, for their aged
relatives now, and for themselves afterwards. Let them
cultivate the best kind of thrift, which is co-operative thrift,
and employ the State in this particular as a mutual provident
association.
Let every elector ask himself whether, among the host of
questions — local, national, or international — on which his
vote is sought, there is one to compare with this question of
the plight of more than a million fellow subjects who bear
the double load of age and poverty.
Remember the Old Folks at home, and do not forget the
Old Folks who are NOT at home.
On behalf of the National Committee of Organised Labour,
Frederick Rogers, Organising Secretary.
Browning Hall, Walworth, S.E.
Two hundred thousand copies were printed and in readi-
ness. A shorter statement was also felt necessary, and Mr.
GENERAL ELECTION OF 1900 103
Rogers drew up his concise little leaflet : —
THE WORN-OUT WORKMAN: WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH HIM?
It is a fact that of the two millions of men and women in
this country over the age of 65 about two-thirds are in want,
and only escape starvation by the charity of relatives poor
like themselves, or by seeking parish relief.
It is a fact that a Select Committee of the House of
Commons appointed to inquire into the condition of the Aged
Poor came to the conclusion that, in the majority of cases,
their poverty was no fault of their own. Obviously it was
not; it was due to their inability to obtain employment on
account of age, and people cannot help getting old.
It is a fact that we are the richest nation this side of the
globe, and that these men and women by their labour, often
most shamefully underpaid, helped to build up our riches.
It is a fact that all who have had experience of its working
are convinced that the Poor Law has failed to solve the
problem presented by age in modern industrial life.
It is a fact that the majority of those who have given most
careful thought to the subject have come to the conclusion
that the only alternative to the Poor Law is a system of
Old Age Pensions.
Vote, then, for those candidates who will face these facts,
and will endeavour to solve them by recognising Pensions for
the Aged as a civic right, and so remove a scandal from our
midst.
The Rev. Canon Moore Ede says : " All through life the
dark shadow of old age of penury and pauperism hangs over
nearly three-fourths of the population of this the richest
nation in Europe — a gloomy prospect. Hard work for fifty
years and more, and then after all the toil and effort to sink
down into the submerged tenth at last. There ought to be,
there must be, some road out of this corner of darkest
England."
There is — when the electors resolve there shall be. The
nation is rich enough to provide for its poor by a system of
Old Age Pensions.
Frederick Rogers.
Browning Hall, London, S.E.
But here let Mr. Rogers tell his own tale : —
" Immediately after the annual meeting, held at Birming- Saturating the
ham on Saturday, July 21st, a copy of the annual report and constituencies,
a letter asking for pecuniary support was sent to every
I04 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Member of the House of Commons and every Member of the
House of Lords. The results, from a monetary point of view,
were not important, but every Member of the then existing
Legislature was made acquainted with our objects and our
work.
" In preparation for the General Election, 200,000 copies
of ' An Appeal to the Electors,' 500,000 copies of ' The
Worn-out Workman ' as a handbill, and 5,000 copies of the
same as poster, and 1,000 copies of special poster for agri-
cultural districts, were printed. Every convener of our
district committees was communicated with, was asked to
be ready when the election came, and was requested to inform
the central committee what amount of literature he required
for his particular district. An effort was made to interest
women in the work of the committee by writing letters to
the leading ladies' newspapers, but without success. Letters
were sent to fifty of the leading newspapers of the United
Kingdom inviting the co-operation of all interested, and two
days after the letters appeared the General Election was
announced. "
So far as our limited funds permitted, every preparation
was made that when the crisis came, the cause of the aged
should be worthily represented.
A campaign of The Dissolution burst upon the nation on September 25th.
education. The electoral struggle was practically over by October 13th.
It lasted a little more than a fortnight. Yet in that time our
forces were mobilised all over the Kingdom, and our printed
matter was circulated broadcast. Mr. Rogers reported : —
" The total amount of leaflets and posters issued from
Browning Hall during the Election is as follows : 50,000
copies of the leaflet ' The Case Briefly Stated,' by G. N.
Barnes, 199,000 copies of ' An Appeal to the Electors,'
280,000 of ' The Worn-out Workman ' as leaflet, and about
3,000 of the same as poster, and 500 of special poster for
agricultural districts. In addition to this about 1,000 copies
of the Balfour memorandum, and Mr. C. Booth's pamphlet,
1,000 copies of ' Hints to a Helper,' by F. H. Stead, 2,000
copies of the manifesto signed by labour leaders, and re-
printed from the Times of January 24th, 1900, and 1,000
copies of the Birmingham Conference were distributed.
During the Election I visited Leeds, Sunderland, Newcastle,
Romford, Southend, Walthamstow, Woking, and Enfield,
and in those places was amply satisfied with the use which
had been made of our leaflets and posters, while a large
parcel of letters received from the centres enumerated above
showed that they were appreciated widely."
GENERAL ELECTION OF 1900 105
Ours was a campaign of education, not a campaign for
seats. The oyster of the average elector's mind only opens
during a General Election ; and we used the opportunity to
insert as much of our fact and claim as we could. When
the next General Election came round, our pabulum was
seen to have been well assimilated.
There was only one seat which was contested simply and Bearding the
solely on the question of universal Old Age Pensions. The lion in his den.
candidate was, properly enough, the Chairman of our
National Committee, Councillor Stevens. He stood as
Independent candidate, resolved to represent only the demand
for Pensions as a civil right. With magnificent courage he
contested a seat that was hopeless at any time, and ten times
more hopeless during the South African War. He attacked
East Birmingham, in the central stronghold of Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain. He met with inevitable defeat. 2,835 votes
were polled for him, and 4,989 for his adversary, Sir J. B.
Stone. But he accomplished a notable deed. If in anything
Ministers were resolute, it was in limiting the issue of the
electoral fight to the War in South Africa. Most determined of Forcing
them all in this policy was the Colonial Secretary. Yet in the Pensions to
heyday of his glory, and in the seat of his power, Mr. the front.
Chamberlain was compelled by the action of Mr. Stevens to
descend from his war charger and address himself once more
to the less flamboyant question of Pensions. It was some-
thing to elicit at such a moment the assurance from Mr.
Chamberlain : " We have not done with Old Age Pensions.
The tale is not quite told yet. Perhaps if he (Mr. Stevens)
will give me time, I will be more fortunate than I have been
in the past. "
In the rest of his utterances Mr. Chamberlain showed a "I know my
sad lack of touch with fact. He pronounced the project of working
universal Pensions to be "an insult to the working classes"; man '
' it would be altogether contrary to your interests and your
wishes." He did not believe the working man would be
willing to pay taxes for pensions given indiscriminately to
all; and, he added, " I think I know my working man better
than that!" And this in face of all the facts chronicled in
the foregoing pages ! Taking the Birmingham Conference
alone (March 25th, 1899), 564 credentialled representatives
of 347,550 working men belonging to Trade Unions, Friendly
Societies, and Co-operative Societies in nineteen Midland
counties — " those decent, honest, thrifty working men " of
whom Mr. Chamberlain spoke, " to be found in the Friendly
Societies and the Trade Unions and the Benefit Societies " —
unanimously declared themselves in favour of the proposal
io6 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
which Mr. Chamberlain called " an insult to the working
classes " and "altogether contrary to their wishes." And
Mr. Chamberlain had said he would await with great interest
the report of these very proceedings. He evidently did not
know his working man.
"The basis of There was one positive utterance in what was manifestly
my proposal." an ill-considered speech: "The basis of my proposal sub-
stantially has always been this — if a working man could
show, when he got to the age of 65, that he had lived a
decent, industrious, honest life — if he had made any provision
for himself, then the State should come in and increase that
provision, and he should be put in a better position."
One more remark may be quoted : " I cannot carry any
scheme now unless I have behind me the working men of this
country." Unless ! and how easily he might have had !
Undoubtedly the ballot boxes did play havoc with some
of our staunchest supporters. Mr. Steadman was flung at
Stepney. Mr. F. Maddison was chased from Sheffield.
Mr. Wilkie was rejected by Sunderland. Even Mr. Burt's
majority was reduced at Morpeth. But as this was the first
national election since our demand was sharply formulated,
it was the first election which saw a number of members
returned pledged to universal Pensions. The Labour group
to a man was of course among them ; and there were many
others.
Members
pledged to
universal
Pensions.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE GENERAL METHODS OF OUR PROPAGANDA
The Unionist Government was again installed in power,
and with an overwhelming majority in both Houses of
Parliament. It was opposed to universal Pensions, but it
was pledged up to the hilt to some form of pensions legisla-
tion at some time not specified. Our business henceforth
was to see that whatever scheme might be favoured should
be an instalment, and not a prevention, of our demand, and
that delay should be as short as possible. The war was the
standing excuse for postponement ; but everyone devoutly
hoped the war would not last much longer : and with peace —
Pensions ! We must demonstrate the purpose of the nation
so clearly as to make it easy, not to say necessary, for the
Government to legislate at an early date.
First we set about acquainting the new House with our
position. In Mr. Rogers' words : —
' At the close of the election it was found that our ideas
had made substantial progress. This was apparent when
every member of the newly-elected House of Commons
received a copy of our interim report, and a request for
their opinions as to Old Age Pensions. The pile of
letters are an interesting revelation of the mind of the
average Member of Parliament. Of vague sympathy there
was enough and to spare, of sitting on the fence not a little,
and of a clear understanding of the conditions of the problem,
some. Among those who understand it well must be counted
a large number of the younger Conservatives. Between the
older Liberals and Conservatives there is little essential
difference: what difference there is is one of terms."
We were glad to feel we had allies in the Ministerial
camp. A Conservative member wrote that he always put
the question this way : " Do you prefer to be taxed to make
people miserable in the workhouse, or happy in their own
homes?" And at the National Union of Conservative Asso-
ciations, on December 18th, a resolution was moved rejoicing
Unionist
ascendency
complete.
Younger men
in both Parties
for us.
How Unionists
lost seats.
107
io8 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
at the Government's victory, but deploring its failure " to
introduce a measure for the solution of the problem of
dealing with the question of old age." The mover, Mr.
H. S. Foster, said that in the rural districts " they were
continually asked why in the past five years nothing had
been done to legislate on the subject. The answer to
experts was simple. They knew how full of difficulty the
question was, and that the Government had not neglected
inquiry. With those, however, who were not experts, a
long and categorical answer was necessary. And this was
not always appreciated : and the result was that many good
friends had lost their seats on that one question alone in the
rural districts. "
This sore experience, and the solemn pledges of the
dominant party had to be turned to account. Renewed and
persistent agitation would avail.
Engineering Some idea of the general way the agitation was engin-
the movement, eered would now be in place.
Mr. Rogers and I saw each other, as I have said, at least
twice in the week, and any suggestion which occurred to
either of us was at once made common property, developed,
and mostly carried into practice.
There also were our frequent committees, sub-committees,
and meetings of officers, in which Mr. Waite's large experi-
ence, fostering sympathy and quick appreciation of a
valuable proposal were of the utmost service. Our meetings
were usually very informal, full of quick suggestion and
prompt resolution ; fuller still of a genial-hearted brotherli-
ness that made a spot of sunshine in our lives. Whatever
difference of opinion there might be, I never remember
even a shadow of unpleasantness. This pleasure was often
heightened by the presence of Miss Margaret Bondfield, of
the Shop Assistants' Union. She had the distinction of
being the only woman on the National Committee. The
sex was most admirably represented. She was a great power
on the platform, where she brought her distinctive woman's
gift of keen intuition, quick sympathy, and incisive raillery.
She was just as helpful in committee. Once or twice, when
meeting in Birmingham, the delight of Mrs. Edward
Cadbury's company was added, and left a gleam of grace in
the agitators' memories.
Our general idea was to overrun the country and capture
it for the cause. The means which we took to secure this
end were innumerable. A few may be mentioned.
We never despised the day of small things. Invitations
came to us sometimes from places we had never heard of
The help of
Woman.
Our general
idea.
THE WARDEN'S ROOM, BROWNING HALL,
Office of the National Pensions Committee.
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CLAYTON HALL,
Where the Conference was held, Dec. 1 5th, 1898, and the National Pensions Committee was
formed on May 9th, 1899.
GENERAL METHODS OF OUR PROPAGANDA 109
Public
discussions.
before, and could hardly find in map or railway guide. But,
so long as bare out-of-pocket expenses were paid, and other
engagements allowed, we never declined a request for speech
or lecture or discussion, no matter how out of the way the
place might be, or small the audience.
The P. S.A. platform was much used. At first there was The P.S.A.
a suspicion that " Pensions were too political "; but it soon
faded before the conviction that they were essentially
religious. Nor was the unwillingness increased when men
heard " what came of a P. S.A. address," and together
traced the agitation back to Mr. Reeves's speech. And,
when sufficient sympathy was shown, the potent influence
of prayer was illustrated and invoked. Many centres of
spiritual dynamic have thus been opened.
Adult Schools have been similarly imbued. Nor had the
time-honoured Mutual Improvement Society been neglected :
nor the club debate. And wherever an opening was made,
leaflets were poured in.
Then there were more public discussions, as when Sir
U. Kay Shuttleworth presided, November 7th, 1899, and
Mr. Rogers set the ball rolling ; or when Principal Dale of
Liverpool University presided, and Professors and Socialists
mingled in the fray which Mr. Rogers had started. These
have been very numerous.
The Universities were not overlooked. Mr. Rogers is
beloved of the young men of Oxford and Cambridge, and has
frequently carried on his apostolate among them. Some-
times a more Olympic council was called, as on April 22nd,
1 90 1, when Mr. Charles Booth held high conference at
Balliol College, Oxford, with the Master, Professor E. Caird,
in the chair.
University Extensionists in their summer meetings were
glad to be enlightened on the problem of old age : and at
various times Mr. Barnes and Mr. Rogers have enlightened
them.
Even Party meetings were not shunned. We made it
perfectly clear that we belonged to no Party, but were
willing to give information or advice to all parties. Within
a week after the formation of the National Committee, I
spoke on Pensions to the Women's Liberal Association at
Westminster Palace Hotel, and escaped scatheless. Mr.
Rogers has passed through such ordeals scores of times.
These occasions afforded us valuable opportunities of dealing
faithfully with Party delinquencies. It may have been
irritating to the hearers ; but it was comforting to the
speaker.
The
Universities.
Even Party
meetings.
no HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
The Press,
urban and
rural.
Leaflet or
"Leader"?
Through the
letter box.
" Lobbying."
The Press was a medium of which, after our earliest
beginnings, we were eager to avail ourselves. In the days
when all the hard fighting was done, the only help the
newspapers gave us was publicity. They reported our
meetings, and (though not always) published our letters.
They interviewed us often, especially as the movement
advanced. Among the great London dailies The Times has
shown us always the greatest courtesy. With the rest, the
limits of space have not infrequently barred us entrance.
The provincial Press, not having on it the claims of a
world Press, was able to give, and did give, to our speeches
and letters fuller hospitality. Nor did we merely seek the
usual journals, circulating chiefly in town and city. Many
townsmen despise rural newspapers. We did not. They
reach the agricultural labourer, and through them we
reached him : with results which backsliding Unionists had
to deplore when they lost their seats. To the many reporters,
interviewers and editors who have aided the cause and
flavoured the memory of their service with some of the
pleasantest personal recollections, I would like to offer
our hearty thanks.
As means of publicity, the newspapers have been very
valuable : as leaders of opinion — well, it would be perhaps
rather harsh to say we found them worth nothing : certainly,
we found the printed " leaders " as a rule to be among the
last to follow. Party obsession is doubtless responsible for
this drawback. There were noble exceptions, which it would
be invidious to mention. But on the whole, independent
initiative in the development of popular purpose has been
singularly absent. The leaflet, far more than the leading
article, has been effective in leading the mind of the people.
The Press had been the mirror rather than the motor.
Through the Post Office, as has incidentally transpired,
we carried on a steady bombardment. We approached any
and every one of serious importance in any sphere of life.
We turned on as correspondent the particular secretary or
member of committee who had readiest access. We ought
to have acquired some aptitude, not merely in knowing who's
who, but who suits whom. We have tried to make every
chord in the lyre of human interest and affection vibrate
responsive to the claims of the aged. We have thus obtained
a volume of opinion of unusual range.
The personal interview was still more efficacious. It took
up much time, in seeking or securing an appointment, as
well as in going to and fro. It also involved a great deal of
that most wearying, and too often thankless, form of
GENERAL METHODS OF OUR PROPAGANDA in
activity known as lobbying. To send in for Members of
Parliament already bored with all manner of calls upon their
attention and sympathy, and to wait their convenience or
freedom from more absorbing engagements, is a dispiriting
process and somewhat lowering to one's sense of dignity.
But the conversation, howsoever obtained, was generally
worth while. Face to face with men who could hinder or
help, we could quickly arrive at the crucial difficulty, and
if we did not succeed in removing it, we at least dispelled
a cloud of misunderstanding. We also learned the tempera-
ture and discerned the subtle shades of feeling in the
individual and in the set to which he belonged, which were
as valuable for our purposes as the readings of thermometer
and barometer are to the meteorologist. And not infre-
quently the interview that had taken some trouble to obtain
proved the beginning of a real personal friendship.
Some expressions of invaluable opinion came to us quite old age
unsought. A signal example may be given. In 1900 Miss Homes.
Isabel Faraday, a cousin of the great electrical and scientific
philosopher, presented the Settlement with the house she
formerly occupied, in East Dulwich, as a Home for old folks.
The beneficent destiny which had linked the Browning
Settlement with the promotion of Old Age Pensions, in this
gift showed its intention of connecting the Settlement with
the movement for providing Old Age Homes. The Home
was opened on October 25th, 1901, and at the public
meeting subsequently held in Browning Hall Sir James
Crichton Browne pronounced a eulogy upon Michael Faraday
which was full of personal reminiscences, and delivered with
splendid eloquence. In it he took occasion to refer to the
Pensions movement, with which the hall was associated.
He is, as is well known, one of the foremost experts on
mental diseases of the present day. He said he spoke as a boon to
one who had a right to know. He declared that, costly as mental health,
the enactment of universal Pensions might be, it would yet
be a most judicious expenditure of the national wealth. For,
as he went on to say, one of the most frequent causes of
mental disorder was a harassing anxiety caused by fears of
a destitute old age. Were that fear removed by a pension,
however small, but certain, the result would be an immense
gain to the mental health of the nation, and so to its
economic efficiency. The amount expended upon Pensions
would be a most lucrative investment of the national wealth.
In our conversation and correspondence with the ruling «$ 'umble."
classes, so called, clerical and lay, we made two pleasing
and perhaps unexpected discoveries. We discovered that
ii2 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
"A counsel of
perfection."
"A publican's
benefit."
those whom we approached were full of the deepest sympathy
and compassion for the sufferings of the aged. Why these
had found such small practical outlet was explained by our
second discovery. The letters we received revealed a hitherto
unexpected extent of profound humility. They declared
themselves quite incompetent to pronounce upon a problem
of such exceeding complexity and difficulty as the problem of
old age. They would gladly see the aged poor relieved, but
really they could not pronounce in favour of any particular
scheme : they were so insufficiently informed, they were so
painfully conscious of their manifold incompetency that they
could neither do anything themselves nor advise anyone else
to do it. Some of them had had time to master the mysteries
of the differential and integral calculuses. Some had even
not shrunk from grappling with the interior mysteries of the
Godhead. But for the endeavour to relieve the daily misery
of a million of their fellow-subjects, they had not been able
to find time or ability.
It was a refreshing contrast to turn from the mental
paralysis of these members of the " ruling classes " to the
robust purpose and keen practical insight of the Labour
leaders.
A further stage was reached when, one by one or in
whole battalions, all other schemes of Pensions were swept
from the field, and ours remained in possession. Then we
found our correspondents following another tack. They
were now quite convinced that the only logical, proper and
unimpeachable system was Mr. Booth's. But, willing as
they were themselves to support this plan, they were per-
fectly certain the nation would never, never consent to the
prodigious cost involved. There seemed to be half visible
a smile of satisfaction behind the argument as they shaped it
to their minds —
No scheme but Booth's can now be considered :
But the cost of Booth's scheme cannot be met:
Therefore nothing can be done !
Another " argument " which came from such opposite
quarters as from a Radical caucus manager on one side, and
from very near to the Conservative Prime Minister on the
other, was not, I am glad to say, often advanced. It was
to the effect that the only people who would profit by a
general system of Pensions for the aged were the publicans.
Much as we resented the imputation cast upon the old folks,
and much as we pitied the blank ignorance displayed of the
actual life of the poor, we would not have minded so much
if it had only led to the Party that usually supported the
GENERAL METHODS OF OUR PROPAGANDA 113
Stirring up
the M.P.s.
publicans' interest supporting this measure too. But it
did not.
Our chosen line of propaganda ran, as our name implies, Value of the
through all forms of organized Labour. The great national Trades
unions were used to the full, as had been shown. But Council.
perhaps no agitation before has so brought out the
value of the Trades Council. The Trades Council was once
looked down upon as the happy hunting ground of
Socialistic cranks. Our work has shown it to be capable
of becoming the local organ of a great national movement.
Again and again has the Trades Council arranged indoor
discussion or outdoor demonstration, mobilized the workers
of a town, bombarded local M.P. 's, made audible the voice of
the non-articulate in a duly summoned town's meeting.
In the beginning of 1901, just before the newly-elected
House of Commons assembled for the first time, Mr. Rogers
sent a circular to every Trades Council in the United
Kingdom, asking them to pass a resolution to the effect
that the time had arrived for the Government to legislate on
Old Age Pensions, and that no legislation would be satis-
factory which did not bestow pensions as a civil right ; and,
having passed the resolution, to forward it to their local
Members of Parliament, to the Prime Minister, and to the
Leader of the House of Commons. No fewer than sixty-
three replied that they had done so. They were in all parts
of Great Britain, from Inverness to Devonport, from Paisley
to Dover, from Cardiff to Norwich, and included almost
every great industrial centre. Many others who did not
reply took the desired action. The number of Members of
Parliament whose pure minds were thus stirred up by way
of remembrance must have been very large, to say nothing
of the local effect produced. The Trades Councils of Great
Britain have won national honours over Old Age Pensions.
CHAPTER XXV
SCOTLAND WEST AND EAST: AND THE
CO-OPERATORS
The analogy As has been evident throughout, our strategy was un-
of war. ceasingly concerned with the larger combinations of Labour.
The military metaphor dogs our footsteps in almost every
attempt to describe the agitation. As we cannot escape
from it, we may as well pursue the analogy.
I have just been depicting our minor engagements. I
have shown how we captured coigns of advantage here and
there ; won a slight skirmish in a village hall ; spiked a gun
or two in the Press ; gained access to heights by paths not
known to the secular politician ; kept up a steady fire through
the post, and so on. But a Conference representative of all
the forces of Labour in a large area corresponds to a great
battle. That won, a whole district has been so far forth
conquered for the cause. The more representative the Con-
ference, and the franker the discussion, the more complete is
the victory. Difficulties felt are expressed and removed ;
objections answered on the spot ; and the main arguments
are at once adapted to the local environment, and assimilated
by the local intelligence. The first Seven Conferences were
the decisive battles of our campaign. The subsequent years
have been spent in following up these smashing blows,
delivered as they were at the chief centres of British industry.
Our Glasgow But ** ma y be remembered that the Glasgow Conference
committee. left some things to be desired. It could hardly be considered
a conquest of Scotland. And the local committee was soon
weakened by Mr. Isaac Mitchell's removal to London.
Further operations beyond the Border were necessary. Mr.
Rogers addressed the Scottish Trade Union Congress, as I
have reported, but though the vote was unanimous the resolu-
tion was not much of a triumph for our cause. So Mr.
Rogers went up to reanimate and reorganize the Glasgow
garrison. The committee was fortunate in its selection of
officers. Mr. Galloway, Chairman of the Glasgow Trades
H4
SCOTLAND AND THE CO-OPERATORS
i'5
Council, brought to the work a great fund of religious
earnestness. The Treasurer, Mr. Glen, had a fine grasp of
the larger bearings of the movement. The Convener, Mr.
B. H. Shaw, proved himself a jewel. Quiet, unobtrusive,
self-repressing, he did more than anyone else to organize
victory for pensions on Scottish soil. He set about to
secure the support of some of the most influential men in the
West country, leaders in ecclesiastical and political life, and
with the aid of his colleagues he organized a great Conference
for October 6th (1900). They did not, of course, know that
that date would fall in the later days of the General Election.
But the storm of electoral strife that was still raging did not
affect either the numbers or the spirit of the meeting. There
were assembled in the Glasgow Co-operative Hall, under the
presidency of Sir William Maxwell, a fine audience of 622
delegates, representative of 406 bodies in the West of Scot-
land. For the first time in these Conferences, Trade Unions
were not in the majority. They formed less than one-third
of the bodies represented. Co-operative Societies were also
much more numerous, though numbering less than one-sixth.
The most important fact was that branches of ten Orders of
Friendly Societies formed very nearly one-half of the con-
stituency. These proportions showed a better balance
between the three great groups of Labour. The figures
were : — Total bodies represented, 406 : Friendly Societies,
192 ; Trade Unions, 144 ; Co-operative, 62 ; Trades Councils,
8. A number of leaders of Glasgow life were also in attend-
ance, including my old friend Rev. John Hunter, D.D. It
was certainly the most determined and by far the most
enthusiastic Conference I had ever addressed. Lunch in the
interval of debate added greatly to the feeling of good com-
radeship. Our resolutions were carried one after the other
by the whole audience, bar one. A solitary dissentient in
each case made the else unbroken unanimity the more real
and striking. The West of Scotland was won.*
But Mr. Shaw was not content with this achievement. He
set about organizing an East of Scotland Committee. The
A decisive
Conference
the West.
for
East followed
West.
*An illustration of the way this agitation had to be dovetailed in with other
duties is afforded by this Conference. The winter session of the Settlement was
just being launched. The usual rush of work was intensified by the pressure of
the General Election. I travelled North by night train : on arriving at Glasgow
went to a hotel to prepare my speech : at noon reached the Conference, which
lasted all the afternoon : in the evening called on friends to interest them in the
movement : returned home by night train : reaching Walworth in time to go
through a full Sunday's work, the pleasure of which was heightened by the good
report I brought.
n6 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Ten million
Co-operators.
Frederick
Haddison.
same policy was pursued, and on June 6th, 1901, a most
important Conference assembled at the Free Gardeners' Hall,
Edinburgh, with Councillor Stewart in the chair. Here
again there was a better balance between the three great
Labour groups. The proportion were almost the same as
at Glasgow — roughly, j + i + i- There were 316 delegates
present. The basis of representation was one delegate to
500 members. The Trade Unions bodies numbered 93 dele-
gates ; the Co-operative, 51; the Friendly Societies (six
Orders), 172. Resolutions in support of universal Pensions
were carried unanimously. Here tea was served to enliven
the proceedings. On the Chairman inviting only those who
had delegates' tickets to participate — for the gallery was
occupied by spectators — someone smartly called out, " Make
it universal !" The clever hit was well taken, and "rations
for all " was accepted as a practical counterpart for that
afternoon to Pensions for all.
These Conferences had, of course, been convened ad hoc —
for the special purpose of considering our resolutions. A
yet more signal victory had been obtained the week before,
May 28th, at the regular Congress of one of the great indus-
trial groups. The Co-operative Congress, representing
10,000,000 members, was then in session, and it was
addressed in our behalf by Mr. Frederick Maddison.
As has frequently appeared, Mr. Maddison has been one
of the most effective advocates of Pensions For All. I first
met him, it is pleasant to remember, at an open-air meeting
in Walworth, to which he had come at our invitation to help
in our Sunday morning work. There were but a handful of
working men about, but from that day forward Mr. Maddison
has been a great friend and helper of the Settlement. He has
spoken frequently to our men, and aroused great enthusiasm
by his addresses. He and they have found a close tie in their
common admiration of the great Italian apostle of associa-
tion, Giuseppe Mazzini. His eloquent advocacy of temper-
ance, of justice to the worker, of " the worker's need of
God," have left enduring and grateful memories. Mr.
Maddison has at times a rough tongue for those who disagree
with him. But the nation is vastly the richer for his high
principle, his selfless devotion to the cause of Labour, his
courageous fidelity to unpopular truth, his apostolate of
international peace, and his deep religious conviction.
In such hands our cause was more than safe. The ground,
too, had been prepared by a succession of meetings amongst
co-operators since Mr. Rogers addressed the Congress in the
previous year. Mr. Maddison moved : " That this Congress,
SCOTLAND AND THE CO-OPERATORS
117
Mr. Hclyoake's
vain appeal.
strengthened by the overwhelming opinion, as expressed by
Co-operative Conferences held during the year, hereby declares
the urgent necessity of Parliament providing an Old Age
Pension for every citizen." A pathetic element was added
to the debate which followed by the emphatic opposition of
the venerable Mr. Holyoake. He regarded the resolution as
an undesirable innovation — a departure from the Co-operative
tradition. Let workers put by their own Pensions, was his
contention, and " if workers had not sufficient wages to
provide for themselves, what were the Trade Unions doing? "
Deeply as the old man was revered, the co-operators felt that,
however effective the work of Trade Unions, the day was still
far distant when every working man and every working
woman would be able to put by sufficient to provide a Pension
for their declining years. The mind of the Congress, more-
over, was already made up, and the resolution was agreed to
with unanimity.
The Co-operative group had fallen into line with the Trade Second line
Union group. Both Congresses were unanimous in support ca P ture d«
of our demand. There now remained only the Friendly
Societies group.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE FIRST PENSIONS PREMIER
Progress
abroad.
la New
Wales.
While hard at work in the British Isles, we were glad to be
reminded of the sympathy of other nations. The very same
day on which Mr. Maddison was obtaining a unanimous vote
in our favour from the Co-operative Congress, the Inter-
national Federation of Miners, meeting in London, passed
with similar unanimity a resolution in support of our policy.
Three weeks afterwards, an Old Age Pensions Bill was intro-
duced into the French Chamber of Deputies.
South But the progress of Pensions within the Empire naturally
interested and strengthened us most. On December nth,
1900, an Old Age Pensions Act was passed in New South
Wales. This Act was notable in two directions : first, the
maximum weekly allowance to all over 65 years of age and
not possessing other means was ten shillings, the pension
diminishing according to amount of other income ; secondly,
the pension was also bestowed on those at any age who
were incapacitated for work by physical inability. This
In Victoria. was forcing the pace indeed.
Nine days after (December 20th, 1900) an Old Age
Pensions Act was passed in the sister colony of Victoria, of
not so advanced a character, giving 7s. a week to pensioners
of 65 years, but also to persons of any age permanently ill
through unhealthy occupations. The inauguration, twelve
days later (January 1st, 1901), of the Australian Common-
wealth opened up the prospect of a yet wider range of
Pensions legislation at the Antipodes.
Even before copies of the Act had reached him, Sir Andrew
Clarke, the Agent-General for the Colonies of Victoria and
Tasmania, kindly promised to come down to Browning Hall
on January 20th and outline the provisions of the new
measure. His coming was made the occasion of offering a
welcome to the Commonwealth of Australia. The Federation
song, " Australia's Cherished Dream," was sung by a men's
choir, led by the composer. The proceedings were solemnized
118
THE FIRST PENSIONS PREMIER
119
by the news of the approaching death of Queen Victoria. An Empire-
Copies of the Act had even then not yet arrived, and Sir builder's
Andrew had to describe the measure with the help of cable- Wltness «
grams alone. But he did much more than describe the new
Act. " One of the wisest and greatest Empire-makers the
world has ever known," as he has been called, the venerable
statesman declared his adhesion to the principles for which
we had contended. He said that in his opinion the only right
plan was to give a Pension to everyone on attaining a certain
age, to everyone alike, peer or peasant, without any excep-
tions ; so that a man should feel that it was not a dole, or
charity, but something which came to him of right, and which
he might be proud to take, for the service that he had rendered
to the State. If at 60 — the age he preferred — a man and
his wife would receive this Pension, they would be able to
go from the crowded area of Walworth back to the villages,
to pass the rest of their days. A lot of money would be
required, but it would only be re-circulating amongst the
people. It was a re-distribution.
This was another valuable indication of the way in which
our demand appealed to the statesman-like mind.
On the Thursday following there took shape one of the Browning Hall
many effects of our Pensions agitation which, though an Conference on
indirect effect, ought to be at least mentioned here. While " ousin ^
going up and down the country to attend the several Confer-
ences, I had the privilege of travelling in company with Mr.
Charles Booth, and of conversing with him on many other
phases of the social problem. The Housing question was
naturally touched upon. What Mr. Booth then said recurred
to me as the 1901 election of the London County Council drew
near. It seemed to me most desirable that Mr. Booth should
state his views in such a way as to give guidance to the
electors, before whom no leading idea had yet been placed.
Mr. Booth at last consented to meet a select group of dynamic
persons, and lay before them his conception of improved
means of locomotion as a first step towards the cure of the
housing difficulties of London. So began the Browning Hall
Conferences on Housing and Locomotion. They were
attended with the same extraordinary unanimity as had
marked our Pensions Conferences. They led directly to the
appointment of the Royal Commission on London Traffic, the
reference to that body being almost a literal transcript of a
resolution of the Conference. The Report of that Commission
confirmed the chief proposals of the Conference. And it was
the Browning Hall Conference on Housing, mobilised afresh
in 1907, which led the London County Council to request, and
120 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Address to the
Premier of
New Zealand.
Notable list of
signatories.
the Liberal Government to grant, the rudiment of a Traffic
Board. This movement, like that from which it sprang, was
nurtured and enveloped in an atmosphere of prayer.
The Pensions movement in this country had received from
the Antipodes so much of initiative and encouragement as to
require, in our judgment, some public recognition. A suitable
occasion arrived with the visit of our Hon. Treasurer, Mr.
Edward Cadbury, to New Zealand. An address to the
Premier of New Zealand was drawn up and signed as
follows : —
Browning Hall, London, S.E.
To the Right Honourable Richard John Seddon,
Premier of New Zealand.
Sir, — Will you permit those who are working in the United
Kingdom for the amelioration of the condition of the aged
poor to present an address of respectful congratulation to
you, whose country has been the first State in the English-
speaking world to create by law Pensions for its aged
citizens? Your experiences are justifying a social reform
which we have yet to obtain, and we find grounds for hope in
contemplating your work. Ours is an ancient and wealthy
nation, yours a young nation without (we believe) the
extremes of wealth and poverty which disfigure our social
life. But the young nation has had faith and courage, and
has felt the charm of great ideas. It has recognized the duty
of society to the individual, as well as that of the individual
to society. Its social conscience has, in this matter, reached
a higher point in ethical evolution than that of many an older
race. Your initiative has been followed by Victoria and by
New South Wales, and the creation of the National Com-
mittee of organized Labour is the direct result of your ideas
working here. Of your personal share in moulding the life
of your country we would say that it commands our admira-
tion and respect, and we have taken the opportunity which
the visit of our treasurer to New Zealand affords to offer you
our congratulations and to assure you of our esteem.
Signed by —
Thomas Burt, M.P.
John Burns, L.C.C., M.P.
Frederick Maddison.
Geo. D. Kelley, Amalgamated Society of Lithographic
Printers ; Secretary of the Manchester and Salford
Trades Council.
THE FIRST PENSIONS PREMIER 121
W. A. Appleton, General Secretary of the Amalgamated
Society of Operative Lace Makers ; President of the
Nottingham Trades Council.
Charles Freak, President of the Boot and Shoe
Operatives' Union, Leicester.
John Buckle, President of the Trades Council, Leeds.
O. Connellan, Secretary of the Trades Council, Leeds.
George N. Barnes, Secretary of the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers.
W. C. Steadman, L.C.C. , Stepney.
Tom Bryan, M.A., Chairman of the Public Health Com-
mittee, Southwark Borough Council ; Sub-Warden,
Browning Settlement, Walworth.
Richard Bell, M.P., General Secretary of the Amal-
gamated Society of Railway Servants, London.
William Coffey, Secretary of the London Consolidated
Bookbinders.
Alderman C. W. Bowerman, Secretary of the London
Society of Compositors.
Isaac F. Mitchell, Secretary of the General Federation
of Trades.
Pete Curran, Chairman of the General Federation of
Trades.
J. Maddison, General Secretary of the Ironfounders'
Society.
Alexander Wilkie, General Secretary of the Associated
Shipwrights' Society, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
James Holmes, Secretary of the National Hosiery
Federation, Leicester.
Allan Gee, General LTnion of Weavers and Textile
Workers, Huddersfield.
T. Chambers, Secretary of the International Transport
Workers' Federation, London.
J. Keir Hardie, M.P.
Benjamin Cooper, L.C.C, Secretary of the Cigar
Makers' Association.
J. Macdonald, Secretary, London Trades Council.
Joseph Edward Gregory, Chairman, London Trades
Council.
S. Woods, Secretary to the Parliamentary Committee,
Trade Union Congress.
E. C. Gibbs, General Secretary, Amalgamated Society
of House Decorators and Painters.
William Thorne, General Secretary of the Gas
Workers and General Labourers' Union.
John Wilson, M.P., Durham Miners' Association.
122 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Charles Fenwick, M.P., Northumberland Miners'
Association.
J. V. Stevens, Chairman of National Committee of
Organized Labour ; City Councillor, Birmingham.
Arthur W. Eades, Secretary of Birmingham Trades
Council; Hon. Secretary, Birmingham and District
Old Age Pensions Committee.
J. Ramsay MacDonald, Secretary of the Labour
Representation Committee.
M. Deller, National Association of Operative
Plasterers.
J. Macpherson, National Union of Shop Assistants.
Margaret Bondfield, National Union of Shop
Assistants.
Robert Waite, Hon. Secretary, National Committee of
Organized Labour, Birmingham.
Edward Cadbury, Treasurer.
F. Herbert Stead, M.A., Warden of Browning Settle-
ment, London.
Frederick Rogers, Vice-Chairman of Conciliation
Board, London Chamber of Commerce ; Secretary of
National Committee of Organized Labour.
Mr. Seddon's The address was duly presented, and acknowledged in the
reply. following reply : —
Premier's Office,
Wellington, New Zealand.
October 16th, 1901.
Gentlemen, — It was with feelings of profound gratitude
and great pleasure that I received the address sent to me
from Great Britain. It falls to the lot of few men who tread
the path of duty to find during their own lives even a partial
realization of their higher aims. That happiness has been
mine ; and when to this is added the praise and sympathy of
those who, each in his own sphere, are leaders in the cause of
human progress, I feel that words are unable to convey my
sense of the great kindness which prompted you to send your
message of sympathy over seas.
If New Zealand has been able to act as pioneer in the first
practical effort to ameliorate the condition of those upon
whom the weight of years and lack of worldly success have
fallen, it is doubtless owing not only to the courage and sense
of responsibility of her citizens, but also to the habits of
colonial life. I allude to the spirit of comradeship which is
THE FIRST PENSIONS PREMIER 123
engendered in men thrown together under circumstances of
common danger and hardship. In older countries where the
grades of society are more strongly marked, and the presence
of indigence is terribly perceptible, the task of protecting and
assisting the aged poor is much more difficult than it is here.
The names of those men, however, who are prominent in the
struggle to bring Old Age Pensions within the realm of
practical politics in England are sufficient guarantee to all
earnest souls that ultimate victory is assured.
That I have been enabled to take a part in moulding the
destiny of this young nation is, in my estimation, a source of
honourable pride. I do not affect to despise the good opinion
of my fellow creatures, and, if my strength permits, I hope to
continue my efforts in the direction of " trying to leave the
world a little better than I found it." Your kind words in
their beautiful setting will be treasured not only by myself,
but by my family and friends after me, and will serve to show
that there is a thread of kinship round the world not only of
blood relationship, but of mutual sympathy and unity of high
ideals. — I am, gentlemen, yours fraternally,
R. J. Seddon.
Frederick Rogers, Esq.
(and other gentlemen signing the address), London.
The tribute which British Labour had thus paid to New The nobler
Zealand was not only a just recognition of service rendered Imperialism,
to the cause of progress : it also enlisted in our cause the best
elements in the Imperialism which then filled the air. We
thought it well to remind the public that whatever enthusiasm
might be roused by the alacrity of the Colonies to spring to
our aid on the field of battle, a nobler enthusiasm was due to
much more important services on the field of social reform.
Newspapers gave great publicity to both address and reply.
CHAPTER XXVII
MR. CHAMBERLAIN AND THE FRIENDLY
SOCIETIES
Why Mr.
Chamberlain ?
Why not
Mr. Balfour?
A carious
speech.
After this pleasant little Colonial episode, we must refer
again to the attitude of the then Colonial Secretary. The
reader may feel that an apology is due for our frequent
reference to the varying utterances of Mr. Chamberlain,
and may object that the turnings of that statesman's mobile
mind are a matter of psychological and personal rather than
of public and practical interest. A word of explanation is
necessary.
The Unionist Government was in power. Any hope of
Pensions legislation must, for several years to come, be
realized, if realized at all, by that Government. But
members of that Government had, rightly or wrongly, come
to the conclusion that Pensions were peculiarly Mr. Cham-
berlain's subject : that he had made it his own : and that if
the Government took any action in the matter, it would be
on his initiative, and by his direction. I tried hard to appeal
past Mr. Chamberlain to Mr. Balfour. We did what we
could to lay the sad lot of the aged on Mr. Balfour's con-
science, and to induce him to make it his special business.
If only his sympathies could be roused, and his tenacity of
purpose set round the need of the old folks, we should have,
it seemed to us, better prospect of getting something done.
Mr. Balfour, unfortunately, would not rise to his opportu-
nities. The result remained that so far as Old Age Pensions
were concerned the Government was Mr. Chamberlain, and
Mr. Chamberlain was the Government.
This fact invested his utterances with an importance which
they did not intrinsically possess. Other importance it
would be hard to find in his speech to the Annual Confer-
ence of the National Order of Oddfellows in Birmingham on
May 29th, 1901.
To begin with, he objected to the phrase " Old Age
124
MR. CHAMBERLAIN AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES 125
A prediction
that proved
false.
Pensions. He preferred to speak of " proposals to assist
men to make provision for old age."
He next declared that "the matter had gone back." War-blinded
Military and Imperial pre-occupations had evidently left him
ignorant of the unparalleled progress which had been made,
and of which all the preceding pages are witness.
He wanted to see " a new start taken " : to put the matter
" again upon its legs." He appealed to the officials of the
Friendly Societies " to take the matter up as if it were a
new question, not prejudiced by anything that might have
been said or done before."
The first consequence he predicted would be : " We should
hear no more of a universal Old Age Pension." That he
believed was absolutely impracticable. No Chancellor of the
Exchequer would find the money. A universal Old Age
Pension would destroy independence, and it would dis-
courage thrift. Here, again, absorption in other pursuits
had evidently prevented Mr. Chamberlain observing the
testimony of experts in the Trade Union world, and the
arguments of Mr. Booth, both of which proved that a
universal Old Age Pension would have exactly the contrary
effect : it would promote independence and encourage thrift.
Then he adumbrated a suggestion in the words : " In the
interests of the State it might be desirable to lighten the
burden of an Old Age Pension, but above all I would desire
to lighten it by the aid of and through the organization of
the Friendly Societies": and again he appealed to "the
officials " "to work out some scheme of old age provision
in which, assisted by the State, a Pension at a fixed age
might be secured to those who had contributed towards it."
The crucial words I have italicised.
He again pressed on the Friendly Societies to frame a
scheme, and then to present it to the politicians. He wanted
to get rid altogether of the political character of the
movement.
His last words were the best : " I do not believe that as a
political movement it has any chance of success. It has
only a chance of success if it is a great social movement."
Therein he spake truly.
From these somewhat desultory remarks of the right hon.
gentleman, it appeared that Royal Commission, Committee
of Experts, Select Committee of the House of Commons
were not enough.
There must be a new consideration by a delegation of
Friendly Societies. Cynical observers were ready to suggest
that this was only another device for shelving the question.
A bid for the
Friendly
Societies.
iz6 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
The three
groups of
organized
Labour.
Trade
Unionism:
ours.
Co-operators :
ours.
The Friendly
Societies, his
last hope, —
But this appeal to the Friendly Societies, and especially to
the officials of the Friendly Societies, is capable of another
interpretation.
Mr. Chamberlain had in the first instance, in advancing
an insufficiently thought-out plan of State-assisted Pensions,
appealed to the working classes as a whole, and particularly
to " the thrifty and provident working men who put their
savings in Trade Union, Co-operative Society and Friendly
Society." He knew as well as we that these were the
three great organized groups that contained all the most
effective elements in the Labour world.
Of these three groups, the Trade Union group was the
first to declare itself. As we have seen, it would have none
of Mr. Chamberlain's ill-defined contributory scheme.
Trade Unionism went solid for a universal Old Age Pension.
Next came the Co-operative group. Essentially thrifty,
essentially provident, co-operators could hardly be classed
with reckless bribers of the electorate, or with favouring
any policy that would destroy independence and discourage
thrift. But, as we have seen, the Co-operative Congress
would have none of Mr. Chamberlain's contributory plans,
but in the name of ten million members, just the day before
Mr. Chamberlain's speech, voted solid for a universal Old
Age Pension.
The Friendly Society group was all that remained as yet
unavowed. If this third group pronounced against him,
like the first and the second, there was an end to his
"promise," "scheme," "proposal," "suggestion," "pro-
position," — call it what he would. It was his last line of
defence. Naturally he laid great stress upon it, and
appealed to it with great emphasis.
We, too, had from the first known and recognized
the essential importance of the Friendly Societies. They
were invited to all our Conferences. They did not at first
respond as numerously as did the Trade Unions ; but their
numbers had increased as the movement advanced, until at
the Conferences representing the Midlands, the West of
Scotland, and the East of Scotland, respectively, their
delegates far outnumbered the Trade Unionists. Moreover,
the official valuer of the great Order of Foresters, Councillor
Hudson, of Leicester, was on our Committee and Executive
from the first. Then, too, we knew, as indeed is obvious
to anyone, that the groupings might be different, but the
personnel in all the groupings was largely the same. The
men who were in Friendly .Societies were not largely other
than the men in the Trade Union or in the Co-operative
MR. CHAMBERLAIN AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES 127
Society. The unanimous support we had among the Trade
Unionists and co-operators involved very extensive support,
to say the least, among the Friendly Society men. We knew
we had with us from the first the vast majority of the rank
and file of members of the Friendly Societies.
The rank and file : but not at first the official heads. In And notably
station or in sympathy those at the top of the great Orders "the
were held to be more of the middle class than of the working °" icials>
class : and they shared the middle class prejudices to a
greater extent.
Hence becomes clear the strong emphasis which Mr.
Chamberlain placed on " the officials " of the Friendly
Society movement. They, at all events, had not succumbed
to the pestilent heresy of a universal Pension.
It was round the Friendly Societies, therefore, that the The stake of
fight now gathered : the Friendly Societies were to decide battle.
between contributory and non-contributory systems.
At once our staff set to work. A leaflet was drawn up
which we ventured to think was decisive and unanswerable.
Its dynamic effect justifies its insertion here : —
WHY WE SHOULD NOT SUBSIDIZE THE FRIENDLY SOCIETIES
TO GET OLD AGE PENSIONS.
1. Because the population of the United Kingdom is
over 40,000,000, and the number of members of registered
Friendly Societies is, according to the latest official return,
only 5,217,261 it would be unjust to tax forty millions to
endow five.
2. Because upon their own valuation, based upon their
own figures, many Friendly Societies are insolvent on their
Pension side, and it is bad statesmanship to endow financial
insolvency. At the last published valuation of the Man-
chester Unity — the most stable of all Friendly Societies — it
was shown that 55.14 per cent, of the lodges have an
actuarial deficiency — that is to say, would not, according to
Government actuaries, be able to meet the demands which
might be made upon them. In 31 per cent, of the lodges it
was proved that the proportion of assets to liabilities is less
than go per cent. In Stepney (a district consisting almost
entirely of the working classes) 26 lodges out of 46 were
proved by the Unity's actuaries to have deficiencies. At
the last published valuation of the Ancient Order of
Foresters 76^ per cent, of their courts showed estimated
deficiencies. According to the Treasury Committee there are
28 Friendly Societies with a membership of 2,214,620, and
with 21,293 branches. Of these branches 12,448, or 58
128 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
per cent., show a deficiency. If the State endows Friendly
Societies it must guarantee their solvency, control their
management, and ipso facto create a privileged and
pauperized class.
3. Because in many parts of the United Kingdom
Friendly Societies do not exist. In districts where wages
are very low they do not flourish. The reason is obvious.
The men whose weekly wages are insufficient for their weekly
needs cannot find the money to pay into a Friendly Society.
These being the poorest, would need an Old Age Pension
most, would pay their share of the tax to provide it, and —
through no fault of their own — could make no claim to it.
4. Because a large number of people are unable to join
a Friendly Society as they cannot " pass the doctor." But
they might live as long and fulfil the duties of citizens as
completely as other persons, and would also pay their share
of the tax to provide Pensions. So we should have those
who were — by medical verdict — not of sound health obliged
to pay for the Pensions of the healthy, and debarred from
Pensions themselves.
5. Because a large number of the worst paid of all
workers, namely women, are excluded from many Friendly
Societies because they are women, and from many others
because their wages are too low for them to afford the
subscription.
6. In a word, because it would mean taxing the ill-paid
labourer to pension the well-paid artizan, taxing the weak to
pension the strong, taxing women to pension men, taxing
the many to give a privilege to the few.
7. Because the only equitable system of Pensions is that
which draws the Pension fund from local and Imperial
taxation combined. To such a fund all would contribute in
the days of their vigour, and from it all might claim in the
days of their decrepitude.
A leaflet that We printed 100,000 copies, and put special energy into
did its work, the distribution. As Mr. Rogers reported : —
" Copies of this leaflet were distributed to all the leading
newspapers, and it was largely reprinted in their columns.
Every member of the House of Commons received copies.
Every clergyman in Scotland, established and not estab-
lished, had copies sent, while the Scotch Committee, with
their accustomed energy, circulated 15,000 copies among the
lodges of Friendly Societies. Each of our centres had
quantities for distribution in their various districts. At
MR. CHAMBERLAIN AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES 129
every bye-election, candidates who agreed with our ideas
were offered our literature free of all charge save carriage,
and much was spread in that way."
A futile endeavour was made to elicit an expression of A futile
opinion from the Friendly Societies in favour of a State-aided canvass.
pension. A conference was convened in London for the
purpose, but the great Orders held aloof. As their leaders
pointed out, it was not for them to forestall the discussion
or decision of the National Conference of Friendly Societies,
which, it was pointed out, was the " duly organized and
recognised body among the great Friendly Societies " for
the purpose of taking cognisance or action on matters of
collective interest.
The Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union A joint
Congress towards the end of the year (1901) resolved, if it National
were possible, to bring the three great Labour groups into Cottf erence.
line at once. It set about negotiating a Triple Conference
on Old Age Pensions. It was baulked of its full purpose,
for the Friendly Societies, with characteristic caution,
declined the overture. But the Co-operators, having already
declared their policy, acceded. Invited jointly, therefore,
by Trade Union Congress and Co-operative Congress, a
large and influential conference met in the Memorial Hall,
Farringdon Street, London, January 14th and 15th, 1902.
It was a historic occasion, for it was the first time the two
great Congresses had in this way officially combined. Two
individual Friendly Societies were represented, 74 Co-
operative Societies, 12 Trades Councils, and 118 Trade
Unions. Mr. Steadman, of the Trade Union Congress,
presided on the first day ; Mr. Benjamin Jones, of the
Wholesale Co-operative Society, on the second. Our own
National Committee was well represented. Mr. Rogers
moved the first resolution, condemning all contributory
schemes. Mr. Frederick Maddison moved the second
resolution in favour of a universal Pension. His was a
strong and manly speech, in which, among other things, he
boldly declared that if the man who made the prostitute
was not debarred the pension, the prostitute herself should
not be debarred. Mr. Waite seconded. The third resolu-
tion declared that pensions should be provided by Imperial
taxation. The fourth fixed the age limit at 60. The fifth
the amount at 5/-. All these resolutions were carried
unanimously.
Here was another great advance. Both Congresses had Confirmation
affirmed jointly what each had affirmed separately. strong.
An incident of personal interest occurred at the close of
130 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Mr. John
Burns.
The National
Conference of
Friendly
Societies.
Mr.
Chamberlain
answered.
this Conference. Up to this moment Mr. John Burns had
not connected himself with our movement. He had been
frequently adjured to do so. Little more than a year ago I
had called upon him and urged him to join the National
Committee, and take a leading part in the work. As I was
impressing upon him with every emphasis in my power what
I felt to be his duty, he cried out, "Stead, man! you're
talking like a prophet !" I answered — maladroitly — " Then
give me a prophet's hearing." He did — by disregarding my
message. I was grieved to think that, when the rest of us
were forming up, he stood outside.
But at the close of the dual Conference he came over and
was promptly voted on the Executive.
In March the third great group declared itself. The
National Conference of Friendly Societies met on the 20th
in Manchester, and gave their answer to Mr. Chamberlain's
appeal : —
" There were present at the Conference representatives of
33 societies with a total membership of 3,670,798, and funds
of ^"26,522,864. The debate on Old Age Pensions, began by
Mr. W. C. Bunn, of the Hearts of Oak Society, London,
moving a resolution affirming that ' it is the duty of the
State to provide a scheme of Old Age Pensions, commencing
at the age of 65, of not less than five shillings a week, and
that to entitle any person to such pension he must show that
he has been a member of a thrift society for at least 20
years.' Mr. Pembury, of the Bristol Foresters, moved as
an amendment, ' That, in the opinion of the National Con-
ference, State-aided pensions would be detrimental to the
best interests of Friendly Societies.' The amendment was
defeated by a majority of two to one. Mr. Duncan, of the
'Rationals,' then moved a further amendment, 'That this
Conference, representing three-and-a-half million members,
is of opinion that it is the duty of the State to provide an
old age pension of not less than five shillings a week to all
thrifty and deserving persons of 65 years of age and upwards
who are unable to work, and in need of the same, and that
such a scheme shall place no disability of citizenship upon
the person claiming the pension, and that the cost of the
same shall be raised without any interference with the funds
of the thrift societies.' This was accepted by the Hearts of
Oak, and became the substantive resolution, and was finally
carried by the Conference by a majority of three to one."
Rarely has so decisive or so crushing an answer been given
to overtures from such an influential person as " the most
powerful Minister in the most powerful Government of
MR. CHAMBERLAIN AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES 131
modern times." Mr. Chamberlain had appealed to Caesar,
and Caesar had non-suited the appellant. Mr. Chamberlain
had besought the Friendly Societies to put their heads
together and devise a scheme. They had done so : and this
statement of principle was the first result. Mr. Chamberlain's
suggestion was that of the State contributing to pensions
" by the aid of and through the organisation of the Friendly
Societies." And they would have none of it. In this
respect Friendly Societies fell into line with Trade Union and
Co-operative Congresses, and formed one unbroken front —
against Mr. Chamberlain.
So far as the united voice of organized Labour, speaking A triple dooi
through its three official organs, meant anything, it meant
that all contributory schemes were doomed.
True, the Conference was not unanimous. True, the
Conference did not support a universal pension. It imposed
the restrictions of need and desert. But, remembering all
that had gone before, the approximation of the Friendly
Societies to the position jointly held by Trade Union and
Co-operative Congresses was most striking and impressive.
The curve was moving towards coincidence with our own
straight line.
This defeat of Mr. Chamberlain was not on political
grounds. He himself had insisted that the question should
be kept out of the political region altogether. His opponents
took up no partisan attitude. Our committee was as non-
partisan as ever. But Mr. Chamberlain had identified
himself with the contributory principle, and so had to share
in its discomfiture. In 1899 he had acknowledged that all
compulsory contribution must be renounced. In 1902 he
had been shown by the very tribunal to which he had appealed
that all contributory schemes must be abandoned. In this
point the victory of the National Committee was complete.
Mr. Rogers, in a trenchant foreword to the terse array of »xhey can
fact and argument which he published this year (1902) govern the
under the title of " Society and its Worn-out Workers," Nation."
summed up the situation thus : —
' So that, with variations in points of detail, the public
opinion of organized Labour all points one way. It is only
the politicians who stand across the path, and they will do
so just as long as the British voter chooses to let them.
The dynamic force which can move them lies in the popular
will. The democracy has either to drive or to be driven.
The politicians lead or will follow, as the people choose to
let them. If the facts here set forth are emphasized and
insisted upon in political circles, Government must act before
132 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
long. The Old Age Pensions movement belongs to no
political Party, it stands for principle and for principle alone.
And it points the way to a new departure in political
organisation, for if the Trade Unions, Co-operative Societies,
and Friendly Societies can follow the lines which it has laid
down, and can come to a working agreement among them-
selves on behalf of social reform, they can govern the
nation."
A deepening These concluding words suggest a wider extension of the
synthesis. synthesis which our movement had brought in its train.
Consequently, or at any rate concomitantly, we have seen
Trade Unionists close their ranks, the Labour Representa-
tion Committee formed, Trade Union and Co-operative
Congresses combining for the first time in history, and the
Friendly Societies converging to the same goal.
The suppliant hands of venerable age seemed to be drawing
the whole Labour world into the unity of its embrace.
Photo b) Stereoscopic Co.
GEORGE N. BARNES, M.P-,
Cha.rman of the National Pensions Comm,ttee.
E.— OUR BATTLE FOR THE BUDGET
OF 1903
CHAPTER XXVIII
GEORGE BARNES, CHAIRMAN
The steady progress of the last three years had all been Peace!
made under the shadow of the war-cloud. It had been made
in face of mounting taxes, and of an expenditure that was
running into the hundreds of millions. A more rapid
progress was soon to become possible.
I was approaching the principal entrance to the Dusseldorf
Exhibition — whither I had gone in June, 1902, to prepare
the way for a visit later in the year of our Settlement
Travel Club — when I saw a placard of the Diisseldorfer
Zeitung, conveying the announcement of Peace in South
Africa ! The Zeitung, which of course I eagerly purchased,
reproduced the Daily Chronicle telegrams, forestalling by a
day or two the official intelligence of the peace concluded at
Vereeniging.
What a world of new hopes fluttered up in my heart as I
scanned the brief news of the Exhibition sheet !
Now was our opportunity.
After Peace — Pensions ! had long been our cry. With Mobilizing for
peace at hand, Pensions were at once practicable. Pensions.
This was the dominant thought in the mind of the
National Committee as it gathered at Browning Tavern on
Saturday, July 24th, 1902, for the despatch of its annual
business. Intense energy and determination was the note
of the proceedings. The resolve was taken that the
Organizing Secretary be instructed to prepare plans for a
winter campaign, if possible of national dimensions, to
insist that taxation be maintained at a level such as to
133
134 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
National and
International
opportunities.
facilitate the securing of Pensions for all next year. A sub-
committee was charged with the instruction to draft a Bill
embodying its demand, and to submit it to a special meeting
of the National Committee, with a view to its being introduced
into Parliament.
At the same meeting we regretfully received the resignation
of Councillor Stevens, who from the first and for more than
three years now had filled the post of chairman of the
committee. We remembered the admirable way in which he
handled the great Conference at Birmingham. We also
recalled his gallant electoral combat with the chief opponent
of universal Pensions. We made such acknowledgment as
we could in a resolution of gratitude, of these and many
other highly appreciated services.
Who was to take his place? At once occurred to my
mind — as soon as I knew of the vacancy — the thought of
my earliest comrade in the movement, who had stood with
me when Mr. Reeves first expounded the New Zealand Act,
whose aid I first invoked, and who had been a tower of
strength in our struggle ever since — Mr. George Barnes.
I proposed him in his absence, and the committee empowered
me to invite him to the chair.
I called twice at his house the same evening, but failed to
find him at home. A day or two after, he called on me, and
I pressed our request upon him. I urged on him the unique
opportunity now before us of scooping Pensions out of the
war taxes. There was another consideration which weighed
with me, and I hoped would weigh with him. The Govern-
ments of the world had favourably entertained a proposal
from Russia to meet in conference on the question of Trusts.
Capital, which knew no Fatherland and respected no frontier,
had been boldly organizing itself on a colossal international
scale, and the suggestion was that only by international
agreement could the Governments of the world keep the new
power within legitimate limits. This Conference on Trusts
did not come off. But, I urged, if the Governments of the
world were even thinking of combining to control organized
Capital, they must more and more rely upon the forces of
organized Labour. This possible combination between rulers
and workers was a hint of further developments of the utmost
importance for the future of mankind. Now organized
Labour in this country had crystallized for effective combina-
tion around the question of Pensions. On Pensions the
British Labour world had solidified into a unit. The office
of head of the National Pensions Committee had in it
potencies beyond its immediate aim.
GEORGE BARNES, CHAIRMAN
135
These were some of the ideas current at the time, which
found expression a few weeks later in a meeting of English
and German working men at Diisseldorf.
Whatever may be thought of the premises advanced,
the practical conclusion was eminently satisfactory. Mr.
Barnes consented to be our chairman, and has from that
date to this been the Labour statesman to whose hands, in
country and in Parliament, the Pensions movement has
been principally entrusted.
The exceptional and distinguished position which he has
held in our movement, and which has become more manifest
to the eyes of the nation in its latest Parliamentary stages,
make it necessary here to give some account of so useful a
career. George Barnes began his apprenticeship in the
engineering line in London when he was 13, completing it
five years later in Dundee. At 18 he set out from home as
an independent workman, and followed his trade for fifteen
years in Scotland, Lancashire, and London. Needless to
say, he was a strong Trade Unionist. His abilities and the
confidence he inspired won for him an ever-increasing
influence in the councils of his craft. In 1892 he was
promoted to a post in the general offices of the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers. After holding this office for three
years, he returned to the workshop for a year or two.
Then, in 1897, he was elected to the proud position of
General Secretary to the A.S.E. That organization is, if
not the strongest, one of the strongest Trade Unions in the
world. It contains some 100,000 of the ablest and best paid
and the most trusted of British workmen. It is also one
of the compactest and best disciplined of our industrial
armies.
Mr. Barnes owed his position in the Labour world, and
now in the larger national arena, to none of those arts
which the terrified imagination of the employing class is
apt to associate with the successful Labour leader. He is
no lurid demagogue or platform incendiary or wily panderer
to the passions of the mob. His speeches are as innocent
of turgid rhetoric as of claptrap ; they show as little trace of
truculence as of sycophancy. Their note is commonsense
touched with emotion and governed by conscience.
Mr. Barnes charms his hearers by his transparent
sincerity, his evident desire to get at the facts, his practical
earnestness, and his broad human sympathy. Here, you
feel, is a man of level head, large heart, and lofty principle,
with resolute convictions of his own, yet fair-minded to those
who differ from him ; above all, a genial brotherly soul. In
Life-story of
George Barnes.
A potent
character.
136 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
a word, it is in his character that his power lies. In the
conduct of the A.S.E. he had an ever-increasing demand for
the exercise of his distinctive qualities.
Ever learning. The scant schooling of his earlier days has been more than
made up by the wide reading and travel of his maturer life.
He is a great admirer of John Bright, a diligent student of
his speeches, and he is also a reader of Ruskin ; and, thanks
to his initiative, the A.S.E. has made several levies for the
support of Ruskin Hall, at Oxford. He takes care to keep
himself in touch with the current of periodical literature.
He has paid several visits to Germany, and closely studied
the conditions of German Labour. He was also a member of
the Mosely Commission, and contributed his report on a
comparison between American and British Labour. He is
an enthusiastic advocate of improved education, technical
and general, both for workmen and masters. He is con-
vinced that Britain in competition with other nations suffers
most from the lack of suitable training in the directors of
industry. Early in his career he was actively associated
with the Land Reform Movement initiated by Mr. Henry
George. To all the leading social reforms he has given
frank and sustained support.
Home and Like most British Labour leaders, Mr. Barnes has not
Faith, denied himself the privileges of domestic life. Mr. Barnes's
birthday is always celebrated by a children's party, and the
sight of the great Trade Unionist romping with the youngsters
on that festive occasion might reach the heart of even the
most militant capitalist. Another glint of the man's inner
life appeared one day when, in addressing a company of
working men, he deplored the fact that the general move-
ment towards reform had come to a standstill, and he asked
from what quarter were we to look for fresh impetus for the
cause of progress. It would not come, he said, from the
clash of parties or the conflict of economic forces. It
certainly would not come from the ethical societies with
their chop-logic. It would only come through the bursting
forth afresh of those religious instincts which remain deep
and indestructible in the heart of the masses of the people.
Similarly, in the papers which he has contributed to the
journal of the A.S.E. appear many glimpses of poetic,
almost of mystic, insight.
A cohesive Mr. Barnes has a singular knack of finding the man
soul. behind the partizan and the opponent, and of winning the
friendliest esteem from those with whom he may be
industrially or politically at variance. He has distinctly
synthetic gifts. He is essentially a cohesive personality.
GEORGE BARNES, CHAIRMAN 137
The diffusion of his spirit has formed a sort of vital cement
to solidify the new edifice of industrial unity in country and
in Parliament.
We looked forward with great satisfaction to the prospect a new type of
of Mr. Barnes entering Parliament. For we felt that he statesman.
represents a new and sorely-needed type of statesman. He
is the product of a newly-discovered school of statesman-
ship. For compare with his the traditional training of our
legislators. What is the course at Eton or Oxford beside
eight years spent in assisting to administer the affairs of a
great national organization like the Amalgamated Society
of Engineers? With its huge body of members, holding in
their hands for better or for worse the industrial efficiency of
Great Britain, that body is a State in itself, and its head
must be no mean master of statecraft. The nation is
beginning to learn that in those who have graduated in the
management of our great Trade Unions there is a reserve of
statesmanship which will stand us in good stead when
Parliament ceases to be a bedlam of babblement, and becomes
a real workshop for the shaping of such measures as will
promote plenty at home, peace abroad, and happiness
everywhere.
CHAPTER XXIX
"WHY NOT PENSIONS IN 1903?"
The Pensions The Colonial Conference was at this time meeting in
Premier. London, and one of the most popular of the Premiers from
oversea was the Right Hon. Richard Seddon, affectionately
known even here as " Dick Seddon." He was everywhere
in demand, chiefly on the more flamboyant themes of Empire.
But he was the first Premier in the Empire to enact Pensions :
and the National Committee, who had (as will be remem-
bered) sent him an address of congratulation on that achieve-
ment, invited him to tell the old country how the great
experiment had worked. Mr. Seddon kindly agreed to speak
at Browning Hall on July 30th (1902). So it came to pass
that from the very same platform on which Mr. Reeves had
expounded the Act immediately after it had passed the New
Zealand legislature, we heard its responsible author describe
the first four years of its operation.
Mr. Seddon at The New Zealand Premier met with an enthusiastic recep-
BrcwningHall. tion from a crowded hall. He was careful to insist at the
beginning that no resolution should be submitted which dealt
with the policy of home government. He was not there to
interfere with politics. Old Age Pensions did not form one
of the subjects before the Colonial Conference. But it was a
question of humanity. He was carrying out the wishes of
the New Zealand pensioners in making their system known.
His people would be glad if they could come to the help of
the aged in the Mother Country just as they had sent their
sons to the defence of the Empire on the battlefields of South
Africa. The pensions in force in a population under 800,000,
including Maoris, who shared in the benefits of the measure,
numbered 12,405. The cost in 1901 was ^197,292. The
charge for administration was ^2,415. The Act as it was
passing through Parliament was bitterly opposed. He him-
self had been kept at the table of the House 187 hours in
defending it and carrying it through. They decided not to
impose special taxation, but to place the charge of pensions
138
"WHY NOT PENSIONS IN 1903?" 139
on the general revenue of the colony. They also agreed that
those who did not need a pension should now have it offered
them.
Could England, asked Mr. Seddon, bear the burden of A blessing on
Old Age Pensions? If they had known when the war began tne nation,
that it was going to cost them 260 millions sterling, they
would have stood aghast. But they had borne the burden.
So he was certain that if these pensions cost eight millions a
year, as had been calculated, England would find the money.
When the honour of the nation, and justice to the aged poor,
were concerned, the question was above all consideration of
mere money sacrifice. This statement was greeted with loud
cheers. As an old Oddfellow, he ridiculed the idea that any
man or woman would be thriftless simply because at some
future day he or she might receive a pension of 5s. a week.
Besides, the poor must be kept. The question was to a large
extent one of relieving local rates and throwing the burden
on the Imperial revenue. No one doubted that they must
succour helpless infancy : there was equal, if not greater,
claim to assist indigent old age. He believed that a country
that did its duty in these questions of humanity would be
blessed. New Zealand had prospered, and was to-day more
prosperous than ever. At the last election not a single candi-
date proposed the repeal of the Act.
These observations of the New Zealand Premier are still
of living point and interest.
As he spoke, one noticed how, when face to face with a
working class audience, Mr. Seddon soon abandoned the talk
of war and Empire which had won such transports of
applause elsewhere, but here encountered a mixed reception.
He showed himself the genuine Labour statesman, the man of
the people, in his own proper environment. Around him
were a number of some of the best known British Labour
leaders.
His visit alone would have made the meeting memorable. Conjunction of
But Mr. Charles Booth was in the chair. And it was indeed Antipodes.
interesting to see, side by side on the same platform, the
pioneer of Pensions at the Antipodes, and the pioneer of as
yet unachieved Pensions in the Mother Country.
But this notable conjunction was not the most significant
feature of the evening. For at that meeting Mr. Booth
launched the battle-cry of our next campaign, the cry which
resounded through the country for ten long months of resolute
struggle: " Pensions before remission of taxation ! " This
was Mr. Booth's survey of the progress of the movement
given in cool and quiet manner, as though describing with
140 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
exactness the elucidation of some intricate problem in mathe-
matics, but with more than mathematical cogency. For the
audience felt the grip and the glow of the practical purpose
which lay behind this seemingly unimpassioned exposition : —
Position of " The interest in the question of Old Age Pensions never
Pensions. flags, and the principles on which, if at all, they should be
granted have gradually become clearer, with the result that
there is now very little divergence among those who advocate
any measure of the kind.
" There are still those who object to every scheme, but
they can no longer rely on differences of opinion among their
opponents.
" These differences, which seemed to be so deep, and which
until reconciled or overruled paralysed all action, concerned
the qualifications of desert and need ; and behind these
questions lay a third regarding the encouragement or dis-
couragement of thrift that might result.
Views past " One side, as the outcome of schemes more complicated,
and passing. but to the same effect, proposed to meet all three points at
once by basing pensions exclusively on Friendly Society
membership. Those who took this side held that to be a
member of one of these societies was a sufficient certificate of
worthiness, and of that suitability of social position which
took the place of need, and pointed to the encouragement
which this important form of thrift would receive.
"These views have passed. I need not reproduce the
arguments to which they have yielded. It is enough to say
that the members of these great societies, though still divided
on the larger question of pensions or not, are practically
agreed in refusing to be made a privileged class.
" Abandoning this solution, or as a modification of it, it
has now been suggested that proof of thrift, whatever the
form it might take, should be one, though not the sole, test
of desert, and a quite low income limit, the test of need or
suitability as regards class. This position is now largely held.
For just and "The opposite party — that to which I myself belong — »
unjust. proposed to deal with the questions of desert and need, by
ignoring them, and were able to show reason for favouring
this course. Pensions, they held, should be for all, falling
like rain from heaven on the just and on the unjust, and on
rich and poor alike, old age being the only qualification, and,
as to the effect on thrift, argued that a small certainty in the
future would become the nucleus round which savings would
gather, and would not depress or supersede, but tend to
stimulate thrift in a manner better and more widely effective
than any direct bonus.
WHY NOT PENSIONS IN 1903?"
141
" These two proposals as they now stand are less far apart
than at first sight they appear to be, and at every approach
to practical action they converge.
" As to the question of desert the difference is hardly more Question of
than this : Shall a man win a pension by proving desert, or desert.
forfeit it by having given proof of undesert? The most
thoroughgoing advocate of pensions for all never suggested
that confirmed paupers, or those who are practically inmates
of prisons, should be supported at the public charge in later
life in any new way. Pensions would not be for them. While
the strongest believers in the policy of discrimination will
hardly deny that to have been self-supporting and to have
retained independence into old age is a pretty fair test of
desert among the poor. Moreover, it would be found in
practice that the test adopted must be simple in character,
uniform in its incidence and easy of application, and such a
test Poor Law and prison records alone would supply. The
question of desert is thus reduced in practice to the extent of
prison experience or the degree of pauperization which should
disqualify. Hence it is evident that the bottom limit, or the
line below which pensions should not be given, covers no
rock on which a practical scheme would founder.
"As to the upper limit which defines need or suitability Income limit,
there is also convergence, the difficulties in the way of fixing
any line are considerable, and some simple solution must be
sought here also. To fix as the basis a low maximum income
from all sources would involve objectionable inquiries, accom-
panied by suspicion of, and temptation towards, false
declarations. There would be danger lest the character of
the pensions should suffer from this. It might even be that
some of the most respectable poor would decline to apply at
all. Pensions so given might carry a taint worse than that
of pauperism. To put the maximum income rather high
would be less dangerous. Some practical plan for this might
be found if such limitation be desirable, in any case, which I
doubt. The point is, however, not an important one, and
certainly involves nothing which could wreck the general
scheme.
"The larger question remains — Is the provision of Is the nation
pensions in old age seriously demanded by the nation as a willing?
whole, and (as proof of this) is the nation willing to pay for
them?
" The cost of any satisfactory scheme will be great, and in
old days we used to be told that the surplus of revenue was
insufficient for so large and so sudden a demand, and that to
impose fresh taxation would seriously and most undesirably
i 4 2 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
upset the basis of taxation. The argument was not without
force at the time, but where is it now?
" We owe it to the war that the old financial equipoise is
gone. Now we can, and indeed must, make a fresh start.
The opportunity is a great one.
" The questions which will lie before the coming Chancellor
of the Exchequer are not solely those of Imperial expenditure
and national revenue, for they are now inextricably mixed up
with local taxation. Old Age Pensions, as benefiting most
directly the poorer classes, and as lightening the local pressure
of the Poor Law, might, perhaps, provide a useful balance
weight in the adjustment of burthens.
" But the question before us is solely — Do we as a nation
want, and are we as a nation prepared to pay for, this
measure? It will follow that if the nation does demand it,
and if Parliament reflects its wishes, the measure will be
carried ; and, however the burthen may be adjusted as between
different classes or different interests, Old Age Pensions will
come first and remission of taxation later."
Two stout Of copies of this speech, large numbers were subsequently
Imperialists. printed and distributed. At the same meeting Mr. Will Crooks,
then Mayor of Poplar, not yet Member for Woolwich, advo-
cated intensive Imperialism in his own inimitable way. It was
good to see two Imperialists close together of such different
brand as Dick Seddon and Will Crooks. The latter said to
the people: " You created this great Empire; you have all
got a bit in it. You are proud of it. And if you only voted
through the ballot-box as you display your enthusiasm at
public meetings, we should have had Old Age Pensions long
ago. We are a wonderfully patriotic nation. I have seen
you Mafficking, and if you only ' mafficked ' for Old Age
Pensions, Chamberlain would give them to you to-morrow.
Twenty-six millions are spent every year on the Poor Rate.
Eleven millions of that goes in purposes connected with the
poor. Buildings, furniture, offices taken out of it leaves you
five millions for the poor. It's a pretty big sieve for it to get
through. Only you pay and don't know it. The aged poor
don't get it; but somebody else does who has got a pal.
Now, we've got to be pals to the aged poor, and see that they
get something, because they've helped to make a great
Empire for us."
The trumpet
call.
The next thing was to prepare a manifesto for universal
distribution. The first draft of it was despatched from the
"WHY NOT PENSIONS IN 1903?" 143
shores of Gare Loch, whither I had been banished on grounds
of health. Each time I recall its putting together, I feel
again the thrill of long pent-up energy, the glowing hope with
which it was written. As finally revised, and approved by
the committee, it ran as follows : —
To the Working People of Great Britain and Ireland.
WHY NOT OLD AGE PENSIONS IN 1903 ?
" We have got the money for them now. The present
revenue can bear the cost. The taxes now flowing into the
Treasury are sufficient to supply, over and above the ordinary
expenditure, a free pension for every aged person in the
United Kingdom.
' Taxation has been forced up for war. It must be kept
up for pensions. The nation has stood the strain of increased
expenditure involved in the South African struggle. The
nation can still stand the same strain for the sake of saving- a
million and more aged Britons at home from disfranchisement
and pauperism, from the ignominy of ' charity,' or from
actual starvation.
" A prominent statesman has declared all we have spent
on the late war to be but a trifle to what we could spend in
case of need. The claim for remission of taxes, therefore,
cannot stand for one moment against the prior claims of the
Aged.
" Next year the Government must either take off taxes or
apply them to other uses. The Government can apply them
to the honourable support of the Aged and grant Universal
Pensions at a stroke.
" But the most willing of all Governments could not take
this bold step unless it was certain beforehand of overwhelm-
ing national support. Many interests which are much louder
but far less worthy will clamour for the surplus revenue.
Taxpayers of all kinds will bring powerful pressure to bear
in favour of immediate remission of taxes. Unless still
greater pressure is exerted in favour of pensions, the Govern-
ment will yield to the rival claims, and we shall have missed
the great opportunity of securing pensions for all without
imposing one penny of additional taxation.
" But if you, working men and working women throughout
the nation, assert your overpowering strength and issue to
the Government a mandate not to be gainsayed, there is no
reason why pensions should not be enacted next year.
" The question is one which concerns you above all others.
It is your old people who have to face the horrors of indigence.
H4 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
The pressure of taxation comes in the last resort upon you.
And you form the immense majority of the nation.
" Your most responsible and most trusted representatives
have repeatedly declared in favour of pensions for all in old
age, not as a dole, but as a civil right. The Trade Union
Congress has thrice carried unanimously resolutions to this
effect. The Co-operative Congress has twice done the same.
The National Conference of Friendly Societies has officially
demanded for every aged person, who is at once needy and
worthy, a free pension from the State. This agreement
among the three great bodies of organized Labour is unpre-
cedented. It is certainly most impressive. Now is the time
for you to make it effective.
" Now is the time. Everything depends upon what is
done by you this winter. If you do your utmost you may see
achieved 'The Old Age Pensions Act, 1903.' If you are
slack or timid, you will almost certainly never have such a
chance again.
" To work then and at once ! Write to your Members of
Parliament, and let them know that any vagueness or
shuffling on this question may lose them the working class
vote at the next election. Enlist the help of your local Press.
Hold public meetings, and, wherever possible, town's meet-
ings convened by the Mayor. Appeal to the churches to
follow the noble example of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
who has promised to vote for our demand. Influence where
you can the local councils of either Party.
" Put Pensions before Party. The fate of more than a
million old folks on the brink of destitution is now at stake.
That is of infinitely greater importance than the fleeting
fortunes of any Party. Pensions are not a Party Question.
" The watchword for this decisive winter was given by
Mr. Charles Booth, when Mr. Seddon told at Browning Hall
of the success of Old Age Pensions in New Zealand, —
" PENSIONS FIRST : REMISSION OF TAXES LATER !
" Lose no time in letting that cry be heard from the heart
of the nation, and next year will see Old Age Pensions
secured."
Fifty thousand copies of this leaflet were disposed of. Mr.
Rogers sent round an urgent appeal for funds to the trade and
other societies, and concluded in sentences characteristic of
the whole circular: "The time is ripe, the organization
ready ; and all we want is funds to create an agitation that
will make our victory sure." So, tense, eager, expectant,
we launched on the winter's agitation.
CHAPTER XXX
THE WINTER'S AGITATION AND OUR DRAFT BILL
The demands of the National Committee were from the Various views
first regarded in some quarters as daring exceedingly. To °' our policy,
claim pensions for all seemed the height of audacity. But
now that the war was over, and the patient taxpayer was
counting on some relief from his aggravated burdens, to step
in between him and the fulfilment of his hopes, to insist that
war taxes should not be taken off until every aged person
had a pension from the State appeared the sheer insanity of
boldness. The immediate increase of taxation due to the war
chiefly consisted of an extra sevenpence in the pound on the
income tax, a duty of threepence a cwt. on corn, fifty pence
a cwt. on refined sugar, and an export duty of a shilling per
ton on coal. Coal owners and miners united in anticipating
the repeal of the coal tax : the general consumer counted on
the withdrawal of the duty on sugar and corn. And there
was the great middle class hungrily awaiting the reduction of
the income tax. What power could avail against such a com-
bination? Some taxpayers went so far as to say that our
proposal was a fraudulent attempt to misappropriate to one
purpose imposts that had been levied for another ! And official
financiers went further, and spoke of our policy as madness.
But we were quite convinced that if our demand, Pensions The people
first, remission of taxes later, had been referred to a plebiscite with us.
the working class vote would have carried it by an over-
whelming majority. In the absence of a referendum we had
to make such shift as we could by means of public meetings
and other recognised ways of expressing the national mind.
The Trade Union Congress, which held its session in 1902
in the fierce glare of London life, again and unanimously
affirmed its demand for universal Pensions.
Our committees all over the country were busy arranging
meetings, or obtaining resolutions from public bodies
assembled for more general purposes, or impressing local
M.P. 's with their views.
■45
146 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Opening the The P.S.A. Brotherhood that meets in Browning Hall
campaign. resolved to open the London campaign in a way worthy of
the place where the movement originated and of the high
service to which they had been called. I shall never forget
the passionate, earnestness with which our comrades in Wal-
worth responded to my appeal. They resolved to rouse the
Borough of Southwark for a town's meeting. And they did.
They worked like galley slaves, distributing handbills and
leaflets from door to door and from street to street. A
thousand women, too, connected with the Settlement were
stirred. They would not be behindhand in demanding a
pension. Anyone who thought of the working womanhood
at the base of the social scale as a sodden, dull, inert mass
of unintelligence would have had a wholesome surprise if
he had seen the enthusiasm of these Southwark women.
They were the first at the doors, more than a hour before the
meeting began. The profounder Influence which is to these
surface efforts what the Gulf Stream is to the ocean wave,
was persistently and passionately invoked.
Southwark October 20th was a wretchedly wet and sloppy night ; but
roused. so intensely had the borough been moved that the large public
hall, holding about 2,000, was crowded out. The Mayor
presided. Practically all the local leaders spoke or wrote in
support of our demand. It is interesting to recall what was
said at that meeting by those who are now members of Mr.
Asquith's Government. Mr. Causton, M.P., supported the
resolution moved by Mr. Barnes and seconded by the Unionist
Mr. Hastings Medhurst, " That the enactment of Old Age
Pensions should precede any substantial reduction of taxa-
tion." Captain Cecil Norton, M.P., supported the demand
advanced by Mr. Rogers of pensions for all as a civil right.
Mr. Macnamara, M.P., wrote : " I am in favour of Old Age
Pensions being granted to all, and I promise to vote for
Pensions first and remission of taxes afterwards." The local
Church was not behindhand. Dr. Talbot, then Bishop of
Rochester, wrote a letter of sympathy. Dr. Bourne, then
Roman Catholic Bishop of Southwark and afterwards Arch-
bishop of Westminster, wrote that he agreed with Cardinal
Vaughan in supporting every effort for the welfare of the
aged poor, and he added : " I wish you every success in the
efforts you are making." The enthusiasm of the meeting
was unbounded. The winter campaign had opened splendidly.
Then we brought out a leaflet entitled " A Four Years'
Fight for Old Age Pensions as a Civil Right : a diary of the
progress of the movement from despair to the brink of
attainment." Ten thousand copies were distributed. The
WINTER'S AGITATION AND OUR DRAFT BILL 147
" facts " in this condensed form did indeed " count for more More meeting*,
than rhetoric." The Southwark resolutions were carried at
excellent meetings in Brixton (November 13th), over which
Rev. Bernard J. Snell presided, and in Dr. Horton's church
at Hampstead, when Mr. Crooks, with his inimitable pathos
swept local membeis of the C.O.S. into the unanimity which
here, as everywhere, supported our twofold demand. At a
similar meeting held in Poplar Town Hall (November 19th,
1902), Mr. Sidney Buxton, M.P., afterwards to become Post-
master-General in Mr. Asquith's Government, declared that
the principle to be adopted must be a universal one. Mr.
Rogers obtained identical expressions of opinion from meet-
ings in Clitheroe and Chorley.
We were badly handicapped in this winter agitation by the Message from
absence in America of most of the British Labour leaders. Niagara.
Mr. Mosely had no evil design against our movement, but
his luring away to serve on his Commission so many of our
doughtiest champions had an effect of which we were pain-
fully conscious on the progress of the agitation. To make
up in some measure for their absence, and to strengthen our
hands at home, the twenty-three Labour Commissioners
signed and sent the following manifesto. It is dated
Niagara Falls, November 19th, 1902 : —
' After four years of discussion and consideration there is
now no doubt as to the mind of the nation concerning
Pensions for the Aged Poor. Every organization of Labour
with a right to speak on the subject has spoken, and has
affirmed that Old Age Pensions are a national need. We
know we are expressing the opinion of the great body of
workers when we say that legislation on this subject should
precede any substantial reduction of taxation ! The Govern-
ment have the money, the war taxes have furnished it. Next
year's taxes will either be remitted or used for different
purposes. No purpose so concerns the well-being of the
nation as the saving of a million and more aged Britons from
starvation and misery. It is the next important step in social
legislation. It is more far-reaching in its consequence than
anything in party politics, and stands outside and above all
political parties. It has been described as an idea that should
unite ' good men of all parties,' and with this description we
entirely agree, and though absent from England would urge
on our fellows to relax no effort to support the agitation which
aims to make pensions for the aged become the law of the land. "
As Mr. Mosely endeavoured to get the most representative
leaders of British labour on his Commission, the weight is
obvious of this deliberate declaration of their judgment.
148 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
High pressure.
Mr. John
Burns.
Would spend
£20,000,000
a year.
With our limited resources in staff and the sinews of war,
the strain of the agitation had been telling heavily on Mr.
Rogers, and about the end of November he completely broke
down. He had to seek health in the far South-west of
England, while the fray went on. Settlement work mean-
while was peculiarly exacting. Every nerve was being
strained to clear off the debt on the new Browning Clubhouse,
opened during the summer : and one of the most acute seasons
of distress was beginning in Walworth. But the extra work
entailed by Mr. Rogers's absence had just to be shouldered —
that was all. Sunday, December 7th (1902), for example,
was a full day. After service in the morning I hurried over
to Dawes Road, Fulham, where, with the Mayor in the chair,
I urged our duty in respect of Old Age Pensions on more than
a thousand members of the P.S.A. which meets there. I
hastened back to Walworth to conduct my Greek Testament
class while I was getting tea. Then I went off again to
Battersea to a meeting presided over by the Mayor, and
addressed by Mr. John Burns, M.P.
After my speech — which the reporters were unkind enough
to say lasted an hour — Mr. Burns spoke. He enlarged on
the wastefulness of the present Poor Law system. During
the previous year he said ^2,329,355 were spent on indoor
pauperism. Of that amount the poor inmates received only
^923,378 for maintenance. ^597,000 went in rations for
officers, ,£385,000 in repayment of loans, and ^440,000 in
other expenses. During the same year Mr. Burns reported
that it had cost 8s. 1 i^d. per head per week at the workhouse,
10s. 6d. at Tooting Home, and 17s. gd. in the infirmary.
Let them take this as being something between 13s. 6d. and
13s. per head per week.
Mr. Burns proceeded then to outline what was wanted.
He advocated a national pensions scheme, towards which rich
and poor should contribute in proportion to their means. For
a start, he would suggest 5s. a week to all over 65 years of
age, the figures advanced by Mr. Charles Booth. Supposing
there were a million people to receive these pensions, it would
probably mean the spending of nineteen or twenty million
pounds. He was prepared to vote for the spending of such
a sum. He would do so with more cheerfulness than he had
been compelled in the last three years to see 250 millions voted
away for a war — a sum which, if capitalized, would yield an
interest more than sufficient to solve the problem of Old Age
Pensions twice over. The pension, he advocated, should be
universal ; rich and poor should be able to apply for it. Then
upon no one could be imposed the stigma that they were
WINTER'S AGITATION AND OUR DRAFT BILL
149
Advocates of
"Don't"
alarmed.
taking what other people could not have. He did not believe
that everybody entitled would accept it. The experience of
Trade Unions had shown that the dishonest men and the
malingerer were in an insignificant majority. He thought
the certainty of a pension in old age would be a stimulus
for men to save by all reasonable means during their earlier
years.
This visit to the Battersea Labour League revealed Mr. John Burns
John Burns to me in a new light. He showed himself amongst as Pastor.
his disciples of the Labour League not so much the politician
or the popular orator as the pastor : he was the shepherd
amidst his flock. The personal inquiry after each one, and
the endeavour to suggest means of help where help was
needed, brought out the kindlier and almost paternal nature
of the man.
We were now in the full tide of our winter agitation.
What it meant for the future was perhaps more vividly
realized by its enemies than its friends. The nation, as
events have proved, was gravitating towards practical
unanimity on the question. But there were some opposed
elements, few and meagre, yet by astute organization and
diplomacy able to turn their exiguous forces to effective
account. The Charity Organisation Society naturally took
up its habitually negative attitude. But its opposition was
more than usually pronounced. For the postulate of pensions
as a civil right would be a terrible blow to that system of
merit as a condition to carefully guarded doles which the
Society enforces with the legalism of the Rabbi and the
ruthlessness of the inquisitor.
Of the fears it entertained I had a piquant reminder. A
leading member of the Society waited on me one afternoon
before a Pensions meeting. He was very friendly, but his
earnestness was almost impassioned. He adjured me to halt
in my reckless career, as he regarded it. Under the influence
of strong emotion he exclaimed : —
' Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Charles Booth, and you have
brought the nation to the brink of ruin, and if you do not
stay your hand it will be hurled into the abyss !"
I was startled at the vehemence of the speaker, and even
more at the unexpected conjunction of the three names. It
showed that to his mind all schemes of State pensions were
equally and entirely abhorrent. My endeavours to reassure
him were in vain.
On the testimony of friends and foes alike we had the Our Draft Bill.
nation with us, whether to precipitate it into the abyss of
disaster, or to launch it on an unmeasured course of social
"On the edge
of the abyss."
150 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
progress. The time had now come to throw into statutory
form the demand which the nation had resolutely and
repeatedly expressed. A special meeting of our National
Committee was accordingly convened at the Temperance
Institute, Birmingham, on February 7th (1903), to consider a
draft Bill which I had the honour to draw up and submit.
The Bill had, like everything else that we proposed to print,
been first brought under the notice of Mr. Charles Booth and
the sub-committee. There were a large number of members
present. Clause by clause was carefully considered, and in
the end it was unanimously adopted in the following shape : —
A BILL TO PROVIDE PENSIONS FOB THE AGED.
(As approved by the National Committee of Organised
Labour at Birmingham, February yth, 1903.)
" BE it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by
and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual
and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament
assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows :
" 1. The Treasury shall, on and after the first day of
October, in the year of our Lord 1903, cause to be paid five
shillings a week to every British subject, male or female,
applying in the appointed way, and certified to be not less
than 65 years of age, excepting such persons as
" (a) Are domiciled outside the United Kingdom;
" (b) Were born outside the United Kingdom and
have resided less than twenty years in the United
Kingdom prior to application ;
'* (c) Are under police surveillance ; or
" (d) Have, on conviction of crime been sentenced to
deprivation of pension.
" 2. Everyone desiring to receive a pension under this Act
" (a) Shall apply to the Registrar of Births and Deaths
in his district (1) in person, or (2) in case of the appli-
cant's physical incapacity, in prescribed and attested
form ; and next
" (b) To the Superintendent Registrar of the same
district in like manner; and
" (c) Shall, on satisfying them as to his qualifications,
receive from them, along with a pension receipt book, a
signed certificate to the effect that he is a duly qualified
pensioner.
" 3. Any applicant who is refused a pension certificate by
the Registrar may appeal to the Chairman of the County
Council of the county, or to the Mayor or Lord Mayor of the
county borough in which he is domiciled. The decision of
WINTER'S AGITATION AND OUR DRAFT BILL 151
the aforesaid Chairman, or Mayor, or Lord Mayor, shall be
final.
" 4. The pensioner shall,
' (a) On appearing in person on the day prescribed at
the Money Order Office which is nearest his domicile,
and on presenting his pension certificate and receipt book
receive his week's pension.
' (b) The pension may be paid to a person represent-
ing the pensioner only when there is presented along with
his pension certificate and receipt book a certificate of
illness signed by a duly qualified medical man, or of
legitimate absence from home, signed by a county, or
borough, or urban, or rural district councillor.
' 5. If the pensioner becomes chargeable to the Guardians
of the Poor as an inmate of workhouse, or workhouse
infirmary, or asylum, his pension shall be paid over to the
Guardians of the Poor responsible for his maintenance,
during such time as he continues to reside under their care.
'6. If a pensioner be convicted of any crime he shall
forfeit his pension
' (a) If he is imprisoned, during imprisonment ; or
' (b) Where no imprisonment follows, for such period
as the convicting court shall determine.
' 7. This Act shall be administered in accordance with
regulations which may be issued from time to time by the
Local Government Board, always provided that wherever the
help of local administration is needed, the aid of county
councils, the councils of county boroughs, borough councils,
or committees of the same be invoked."
As was pointed out at the time, the aim of our Bill was to The ma i ni(lc .
put in the simplest form our main contention, that pensions
are for all, and that only the obvious exceptions need to be
specified. Beyond the primary fact of age, we specified no
qualification. We only specified the few disqualifications. The
principle uppermost in our mind was that a pension is a civil
right, and should be intermitted only where other civil rights
are forfeited or withheld. This principle has been adopted
in the first Old Age Pensions Act. But, alas ! in the Act the
exceptions have been numerous, arbitrary, and perplexing.
The machinery of Pensions suggested in our Bill is also Machinery
marked by the utmost simplicity. During the first three simple.
months, when a million or more pensioners would have to be
registered, the Registrar-General and his subordinates
throughout the kingdom would be equal to the strain, for
152 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
they overtook the much greater difficulties of the ordinary
census. Nor did we think it needful to institute any pains
or penalties. Anyone endeavouring to obtain a pension under
false pretences would be punished by the same laws which
now punish other attempts to defraud.
Difficulties The case of sailors and travellers, which had caused law-
obviated, makers and bill-makers some trouble, was made quite simple.
Any sailor or traveller over 65 years of age only needed to
show that his domicile is not outside the United Kingdom in
order to receive his pension certificate ; and only required a
certificate of legitimate absence from a municipal councillor
to enable some representative to draw his pension for him
during his stay abroad. This principle also has been adopted
Ho foothold for in the main in the Act of 1908. Scrupulous care was taken
Peers. to exclude anything but what belonged to a money Bill pure
and simple, in order to obviate committee work in the House
of Lords. We felt that the simple provisions of our Bill
would help to commend the simplicity in principle and applica-
tion, which is one of the chief merits of universal pensions.
Immediately after this Bill was passed by the National
Committee, it was backed by John Burns, Thomas Burt,
Charles Fenwick, John Wilson of Durham, Richard Bell, and
Daniel J. Shackleton.
fiules of At the Birmingham meeting our constitution was reduced
National to definite form in the following rules : —
Committee. " 1. — The name of the Society shall be 'The National
Committee of Organized Labour."
" 2. — Its object shall be the creation, by legislative enact-
ment, of a national system of Free State Pensions for aged
citizens, such pensions to be a civil right, which may be
claimed by any citizen, male or female, who is not a criminal
or alien.
" 3. — Its membership shall consist of district committees,
which are in agreement with the policy of the National Com-
mittee, of subscribing societies ' and subscribing members.
Each district committee shall elect its own officers, and shall
have the power, on affiliation to the National Committee, to
elect one member to the Executive Committee.
" 4. — The society shall be governed by an Executive Com-
mittee, subject to the control of the annual meeting. The
said Executive Committee to consist of all the officers of the
society, and of persons elected by the district committees.
11 5. — The officers of the society shall be a Chairman,
Vice-Chairman, Treasurer, two Hon. Secretaries, and an
Organizing Secretary.
" 6. — The Executive Committee and all officers of the
WINTER'S AGITATION AND OUR DRAFT BILL 153
society shall be elected annually at the annual meeting of the
members and subscribers of the society, and shall have power
to add to their number.
" 7. — The Executive Committee shall meet as often as may
be required for the transaction of business.
"8. — Every individual subscriber shall be invited to
attend, and every subscribing society shall be invited to send
delegates, and every district committee shall be invited to
send delegates to all general meetings.
" g. — No alteration of these rules shall take place, except
by an annual or special general meeting, and not less than one
month's notice shall be given of such alteration."
CHAPTER XXXI
THE ATTITUDE OF LIBERAL LEADERS AND
THEIR LABOUR MEN
A callous Our demand was now put into shape for legislation. It
Parliament. ^ad k e hj nc j ft t h e practically unanimous support of organized
Labour. It had secured the mandate of the great mass of the
people. It had reached the threshold of Parliament. We
had, so to speak, overrun almost the whole of the territory
in dispute. We had carried line after line of the opposing
outworks. Now our attack was directed on the central citadel
itself. We laid siege to the House of Commons.
The Parliament of 1900 was by no means composed of the
material that is most vulnerable to social appeals. It was
elected primarily, if not exclusively, to back up the Govern-
ment in " fighting to a finish " in South Africa. It embodied
the patriotic pugnacity of the nation. It was feverishly
responsive to the claims of extensive Imperialism. To those
of intensive Imperialism it was, if not stone deaf, decidedly
hard of hearing. " The present House," said one of its
Members, " is certainly very much interested in — motors!"
The Opposition was almost equally indifferent. A new
Member who has since taken office under a Liberal Govern-
ment said to me shortly after he had entered the House of
Commons : " The Liberals are, as a whole, a most disappoint-
ing lot. They are not interested in the things that you and
Deaf to the I are interested in. They care nothing for pensions, or
cry of the housing, or the unemployed." It was not easy to find what
^ 00^ • they did care about — except the miserable quarrels which
rent their attenuated ranks and still further reduced them to
impotence. The winter of 1902 to 1903 was one of the
severest distress in South London and elsewhere. Night
after night I was engaged, with my fellow-workers, in
administering such scanty relief as we could obtain for the
starving poor. Day after day our hearts were torn by sights
15+
ATTITUDE OF LIBERAL LEADERS
155
and stories of hunger and cold. Famine-smitten mothers
gave birth to children in rooms that were fireless and
furnitureless, without blanket or sheet to cover their limbs.
Starving men and women and children were all about us —
and starving, shivering old folks. Yet when we turned from
this seething agony of the people to the Party that claimed to
be the Party of the people, what did we find? Impassioned
eagerness to come to the help of the suffering populace?
Heroic subordination of all personal ambitions and sectional
pursuits, in the resolute endeavour to devise means of relief?
Not a bit of it. The chief energies of that Party appeared to
be absorbed in the momentous discussion whether " a
furrow" or "a tabernacle" was the more appropriate
metaphor for their fissiparous leadership. The country might
be excused for wondering whether there was any leader to
lead, or, in fact, whether there was any Party to follow.
The Opposition, whatever its politics, is generally a con- Both Parties
venient instrument for rousing an otiose Government to a indifferent
lively sense of the perils of inaction. It is in normal circum-
stances the natural resort of those who wish to force the
hand of the dominant Party. But, alas ! the circumstances
were not normal. Official Liberals showed as little sign as
did official Unionists of yielding to anything except popular
pressure on the one side and on the other dread of being
forestalled by their rivals. The effective will to help was not
apparent in either of the historic Parties.
But there were other groups which might fairly be expected
to prove of service. How far the expectation was justified we
shall show later.
First of all, however, we resolved to bombard the whole Every Member
House of Commons through the post. Towards the end of written to.
1902, Mr. Rogers being off duty and on sick furlough, I wrote
to every Member of the House, enclosing our printed matter,
pointing out the opportunity offered by the next year's Budget,
and asking for an answer to these two pointed questions : —
" Will you vote for the enactment of Old Age Pensions
prior to any substantial reduction of taxation?"
" Will you vote for a Bill to make a free pension from the
State the Civil Right of every aged person who is not dis-
qualified by crime or recent alien origin?"
The response we received was thus epitomized by Mr. Replies.
Rogers : —
" Forty-seven of the six hundred and thirty Members
replied, twenty-two in the affirmative, ten in the negative,
and the rest are best described by Bunyan's character who
was named ' Mr. Facing Both Ways. ' Our correspondence
156 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
was not, however, entirely thrown away even upon those who
did not reply, as just about that time the provincial Press
bristled with paragraphs and short leaders on Old Age
Pensions, which, it was manifest, were inspired by our
circulars. "
W. S. Robson, Two of the letters received came from men who have since
M.P. taken office in the Liberal Government, and may be quoted as
revealing something of the official mind of the then Opposi-
tion. Sir (then Mr.) W. S. Robson, M. P. , wrote me from
26, Eaton Square, S.W., on December nth, 1902, as follows,
communicating his letter at the same time to the Liberal news-
papers, where it appeared under the scare headlines, "Taxing
the Food of the Underfed in the Name of Charity " : —
A curious " Dear Sir, — I have received your postcard inviting me to
charge. vote for universal Old Age Pensions prior to any substantial
reduction of taxation. In my opinion the new taxes on food
must be repealed before any fresh expenditure is incurred, or,
indeed, whether any fresh expenditure be incurred or not.
I am in favour of Old Age Pensions, but I am not in favour
of buying them by taxes on the food of the underfed poor.
That is a price there is no need to pay. There are no doubt
large and powerful classes who would be delighted to see
Old Age Pensions given to the poor on these terms. Land-
owners who want a tax on imported corn, and sugar refiners
who want a tax on imported refined sugar, will, no doubt,
acclaim your suggestions with very intelligible philanthropy,
but I am sorry to see the National Committee co-operating
with such allies. They will easily improve on the policy you
have declared. They will invest the taxes on food and trade
with a halo of philanthropy derived from the generous object
to which they are applied, and then it will be a simple matter
to increase them. Sixty years ago the Party now in power
crippled our trade and starved our poor in the name of
national prosperity. Now, with your help, they will do it
in the name of national charity. The motive, however, will
be the same, and the effect will be the same. You neither
share the motive, nor desire the effect, but if you pursue the
policy you now suggest you will share the evil responsibility.
—Yours faithfully, W. S. Robson."
A Boomerang. Read in the light of our previous record, and still more in
the light of subsequent events, this letter is certainly amusing.
We had just emerged from a victorious struggle with Mr.
Chamberlain over the policy of organized Labour in general,
and of the Friendly Societies in particular. Yet Mr. Robson
speaks of the very people whom we had worsted as our
" allies," and predicts that " with our help " they will
ATTITUDE OF LIBERAL LEADERS 157
re-impose Protection. The last sentence is delightful. " If,"
he says, " you pursue the policy you now suggest, you will
share the evil responsibility." We have pursued the policy
we then suggested, and pensions have been enacted — by a
Free Trade Ministry of which Mr. Robson is a member. We
accept the responsibility, but does Mr. Robson consider that
responsibility to be an " evil " thing?
The obvious evasion of the point at issue had at once to Exposing the
be pointed out in my reply, to which equal publicity was Evasion.
given : —
" Sir, — Mr. W. S. Robson, M.P., in his letter of yesterday
seems to have entirely overlooked the word ' substantial ' in
our plea for ' universal Old Age Pensions prior to any
substantial reduction of taxation. ' It was precisely to obviate
such criticism as that of Mr. Robson that the word ' sub-
stantial ' was introduced into our question. The new taxes
on food would be repealed without reducing the present level
of taxation below the point which would cover the immediate
enactment of pensions. The National Committee of Organized
Labour is not committed to any scheme of taxation. It is
supported by men avowing very different fiscal opinions. It
exists, not to propound a preference for certain sources of
revenue, but to insist that pensions for all should be paid for
by all through the national taxes, and that the time has now
come to embody that principle in legislation. It follows that
the National Committee does not necessarily stand by any one
of the existing forms of taxation, but that it does insist that
whatever readjustment is decided upon the level of taxation
shall not be lowered to a point which would make the imme-
diate enactment of pensions impossible. The National
Committee will be satisfied if universal pensions are secured ;
the battle over the particular system of taxation which the
nation in its wisdom shall adopt is one with which the
National Committee has, as such, no collective concern.
"I note with pleasure that you, Sir, in your leading columns
declare of our policy that ' the argument is sound, and the
tactics are good.'
" Mr. Robson has not merely overlooked the significance
of the word ' substantial. ' He has omitted to inform us
whether he will vote ' for a Bill to make a free pension from
the State the civil right of every aged person who is not
disqualified by crime or recent alien origin. ' This is an
omission which I hope he will supply without delay. — Yours,
etc., F. Herbert Stead, Hon. Secretary to the National
Committee. "
Mr. Robson's letter was, in fact, characteristic of official
158 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
A specious
pretext.
Herbert
Gladstone, M. P.
Liberalism as we found it. One line to say " I am in favour
of Old Age Pensions," and twenty-four lines to add : " But
..." and to show why the one plain way to the adoption
could not be taken. Vague and brief assurances of sympathy,
precise and copious explanations why nothing should now be
done.
Another perversion of the issue which is suggestive of
middle-class politics must be noted. The taxes that were
remitted next year were fourpence in the pound off the income
tax, and the duty on corn and flour. The yield of the four-
penny income tax was ten millions, and of the duty on corn
two and a half millions. In answer to our demand for
pensions before a substantial reduction of taxation, Sir W. S.
Robson says nothing about the income tax, which of course
supplied the enormous preponderance of the available surplus,
but thrusts the two and a half millions of the corn duty to
the front, and charges us with endeavouring to get pensions
by taxing the food of the people. I need not refer to the
taxes on sugar which the Liberal Government left unrepealed
during its first two years' tenure of office, and only partly
repealed in the third year ; or to the taxes on tea which were
only reduced a penny a pound by Mr. Robson 's colleagues.
Any criticism passed on us in respect of the sugar and tea
taxes applies equally to the Liberal Government of which
Sir W. S. Robson is a member. In fact, that Government has
enacted pensions before remission of these taxes on food, and
Sir W
S. Robson and his colleagues come under his own
charge of
raxing the food of the underfed in the name of
charity." As the sequel showed, the real question was, Shall
pensions be enacted before the income tax is reduced ? Under
the pretext of defending the food of the poor, Sir W. S.
Robson was really defending the well-to-do income tax payer.
The other letter was from Mr. Herbert Gladstone. He
wrote also on December nth : —
" Dear Sir, — I have yours of the 9th inst. I am certainly
in favour of the principle of Old Age Pensions, but I do not
pledge myself either to time or method of dealing with it.
I note you say there is a unique opportunity next year, owing
to the cessation of the War demand on our existing revenue.
I disagree with this. There will be a heavy demand for years
to come on account of the South African War, and, as a
consequence of it, expenditure on both the Army and Navy
is likely to rise very considerably. — Faithfully yours, H.
Gladstone."
Here, again, events have dealt hardly with the right hon.
gentleman's logic. For, as a matter of fact, the Budget of
ATTITUDE OF LIBERAL LEADERS
*59
The Irish
M.P.'s.
next year showed a surplus of over ten millions sterling.
It would require some courage to affirm that such a surplus
did not constitute "a unique opportunity," or that it was
not " owing to the cessation of the War demand." Here,
too, was the usual profession of positive principle and
negative practice.
A much more robust and satisfactory answer came from Reginald
Mr. Reginald McKenna, M.P., who was not then, however, McKenna, M.P.
included in the official circle of Liberal leaders. He wrote,
on December nth, 1902 : —
" Dear Sir, — It is difficult to give a definite reply to both
the questions addressed to me by the National Committee of
Organized Labour on Old Age Pensions. I am in favour of
Mr. Booth's scheme, and if this statement is of assistance to
the Committee I am very glad to make it. But I should not
put the claim for Old Age Pensions as stronger than that
for the reduction of taxation on the necessaries of life, bread,
sugar and perhaps tea, or than that for the abolition of the
coal tax. You may consider these reductions as substantial,
and if you do my reply to your first question would be in the
negative. "
From Irish Members we received a very warm assurance
that the Irish Party was in respect of Pensions, as in all
domestic questions, heart and soul with the Labour Party.
With the representatives of Labour, therefore, backed by
Irish Members, lay our principal hope. Even the twenty-two
who had signed our pledge were of themselves a body of men
numerous enough, if only determined enough, to force our
demand upon the attention of the House and to insist on a
division. It was just in the possibility of this direct
challenge, which we had reason to believe was dreaded both
by official Unionism and official Liberalism, that our chance
stood of obtaining Pensions. The Session which was to
decide the momentous issue was opened on February 7th
(1903). It was at once evident that the Government meant
to do nothing for the aged. There was not a word about
Pensions in the King's Speech.
The first weapon available was in the debate on the The Liberal
Address. An amendment might be moved expressing regret Labour group,
at the omission of any promise of Pensions. I at once
endeavoured to arrange for such a motion. I appealed to
the Trade Union group. All its members were avowed
supporters of our demand and of our policy.
But I found, to my surprise, that they were by no means
in a hurry to act. They seemed to regard Pensions as only
one of a long list of reforms to which they were pledged.
160 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
They explained to me in a somewhat paternal manner that
it was natural for me to think Pensions was the one reform
to be pushed before all others : I had made it my special
subject, and had pursued it with commendable concentration
and absorption of purpose. But they saw matters in a
broader light. They felt a difficulty in exalting pensions to
a unique eminence when there were so many other questions
demanding attention. Besides, every other man in charge of
a movement talked and argued about the unique importance
of his measure just as I did about mine. Then, too, as
Free Traders they did not wish to offer any excuse for the
retention of the duty on corn. I was to them only a man of
one idea.
Myopia extra- I could not but inwardly smile — even if I chafed a little —
ordinary. a t this estimate of the significance of our movement. I
knew that time would vindicate — as it has vindicated — the
correctness of our political perspective. But what Lord
Rosebery and Mr. Asquith discerned and declared in 1908
was hidden from the Liberal Labour Members in 1903.
Then I could not help feeling that they had been thoroughly
disheartened by the long ascendency of forces which they
considered inimical to progress. To their way of thinking,
no good thing could come out of Nazareth : no measure of
popular reform could be extracted from a Khaki majority.
And I gathered that they had come to resign themselves to a
dependence almost complete on the Liberal Party. They
appeared to be looking for initiative from Liberal head-
quarters, rather than to be developing and relying on their
own initiative. They certainly did not reveal any eagerness
for that prompt action which alone avails in dealing with the
Address.
At Liberal Next day to my considerable surprise, I was invited to call
headquarters. a t the offices of the Liberal Central Association for a talk on
Old Age Pensions. I went, premising that our committee
was entirely non-partizan and could be committed to no
partizan policy. I briefly recounted the progress of our
agitation, and indicated the volume of popular support
behind it. I also took occasion to deal very faithfully with
the shortcomings of official Liberalism. What I have just
said in these pages, I said then, but even more pointedly.
For my soul was hot within me, to see a great historic Party
masquerading in the guise of friends of the poor and yet
so manifestly indifferent to the vast masses of aged misery
which lay like burning lava on our hearts. I was not sorry
to bear such witness there, at the headquarters of what
seemed perilously like an "organized hypocrisy." Some
ATTITUDE OF LIBERAL LEADERS
161
effect was apparently produced. For I was given the
entirely spontaneous assurance, unlooked for and unasked
for by me, that if Labour Members moved an amendment to
the Address regretting the absence of any mention of Old
Age Pensions in the King's Speech, there was every reason
to believe that His Majesty's Opposition would support that
amendment. Communication would, I was told, be made
to Mr. John Burns to that effect.
This looked like business. I did my best to see Mr. Burns,
but without success. Mr. Rogers and I tried, but in vain,
to arrange for a Labour amendment of the kind desired.
We found that a similar amendment had been put down by
a Unionist Member. This was good news : for though it
blocked a Labour motion it was ominous of a revolt in the
Unionist ranks. But, alas ! every amendment touching on
Pensions was now rendered out of order — so we were
informed — through the. presentation by private Members of
Bills dealing with the subject. The precious hours had
passed during which our amendment would have been in
order. If only the Liberal-Labour group had taken prompt
action as we advised, then what we knew to be the national
demand would have found voice in the Debate on the
Address. They might have had a considerable Unionist
following. They might also have had the support of the
official Opposition. The display of protest might have
sufficed to overcome the reluctance of the Government and
secure, as one of the provisions of the Budget, an instal-
ment at least of Old Age Pensions. For this course there
was an important precedent. Free education was granted
under Budget in 1891 by the Unionist Government without
having been promised in the Queen's Speech.
But we were foiled in our first attack.
Another disaster overtook us. The Bill which had been
prepared by our National Committee and which was
entrusted to the care of Mr. John Burns, fared badly in the
ballot. It was allotted a place so distant as to be out of the
range of any possibility of debate in the course of the
session. An early night was indeed won for a Pensions
Bill brought forward by Mr. Remnant, a Unionist Member ;
but his proposals were from our point of view very limited
and unsatisfactory.
So, after an uninterrupted series of successes, we had met
with our first serious reverse. Victorious in the country,
we had been baulked at the very entrance of our measure
into Parliament. We could not raise the question on the
Address. We could not get our own Bill discussed. We
M
A sign of
grace.
Too late.
An unlucky
Ballot.
A double
Reverse.
i6z HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Central
not be
were faced with the labyrinthine jungle of the rules and
customs of the House of Commons. But we were quite
sure that resolute men inside the House could hew their way
through and provoke a debate, and take a division. We
favoured the idea of proceeding by way of resolution. We
discovered, however, that not the resolution, or the
opportunity, but the resoluteness was wanted.
The Liberals' I was, of course, bound to report to the Liberal
chance. Association that the Labour amendment could
moved. In doing so, I represented the singular nature of
the situation now disclosed : —
"The working classes of this country are presented with
the spectacle of a Government pledged to Old Age Pensions,
but omitting all mention of them in the King's Speech for
this crucial session, and of an Opposition which you declare
is unanimously in favour of Old Age Pensions allowing this
omission to pass without a word. The only remonstrance
comes from a Unionist Member, and his amendment is ruled
out. The only Bill that has secured a possible night is one
by a member of the Ministerial majority, and is not on the
lines that the working classes have demanded.
" Surely if the Liberal Party wishes to put itself right with
the working classes of this land, it will find some oppor-
tunity during this present session of raising the question of
Old Age Pensions and of inducing the Government to reveal
or develop its intentions in the matter."
Promptly came back the reply that no statement had been
made to the effect that " the Opposition is unanimously in
favour of Old Age Pensions." It might or might not be so :
the writer simply did not know. But, he added, " A resolu-
tion in the House would determine it, and it is a pity that you
did not get one of your avowed supporters in the House to
move a resolution satisfactory to your Committee."
Pie-crust This being precisely the course we wished to pursue, we
promises. made every effort to induce one of the most prominent of
" our avowed supporters " to move a resolution. I per-
sonally waited on Mr. John Burns time after time in the
Lobby of the House, laying before him the absurd contrast
between the position of our movement in the country and in
the House, and urging him to raise the question in the
way suggested. After much conversation, Mr. Burns pro-
mised that he would call the attention of the House to the
question "next Thursday." Next Thursday came, and
went, and the promise was unfulfilled. Again I saw Mr.
Burns, and again he said he would bring the matter up
in the House "next Thursday." Again nothing of the
ATTITUDE OF LIBERAL LEADERS 163
kind took place. Still I persevered, for I was glad to hope
that Mr. Burns would be the man to voice in the House of
Commons the demand of our National Committee. But
week after week went by, and the same tale was told. The
promise was not fulfilled. " Next Thursday " became like
the Spanish " manafia," a morrow that was always coming,
but never came.
Very regretfully I came to the conclusion that it was no "Tekcl."
use making any further appeal to Mr. Burns to advance our
cause in Parliament. From that day to this I have never
invoked his individual aid. Many a pleasant conversation
has taken place whenever we chanced to meet, with much
breezy banter from him, but there was no more attempt to
secure his championship. The early weeks of the session
of 1903 were made very sad to me by the discovery that for
the promotion of our great cause I had henceforth to turn
away from one I so loved and honoured.
If only there had been a Labour Parnell to head the move- for a Labour
ment in the House, what might he not have achieved ! With Parnell!
even a score of pledged men behind him, with both Parties
hesitating — more afraid of openly refusing, than even of
assuming, the costly undertaking of Pensions, and seeking
a coward's refuge in postponement — and with the enormous
popular backing which had been elicited in the country, he
might have played one Party against the other until he had
won his will. Alas ! there was no Labour Parnell.
CHAPTER XXXII
DEFEAT
A new Labour-
man.
A big
"Mandate for
Pensions."
On the Parliamentary gloom which hung over our move-
ment, a new dawn broke on March nth. A new sort of
Labour man entered the House of Commons. Will Crooks
was elected by an overwhelming majority as Member for
Woolwich. Of this hero and darling of the common people,
there is no need to write the life or appraise the character.
His rise from the position of an orphan workhouse boy to
the front rank of Labour in Parliament has been described
in innumerable periodicals, and has found permanent record
in a published biography. His delightful personality has
become the enrichment of all our public life. I have never
met a man yet who hates, or even dislikes, Will Crooks.
Firm as a rock in his adhesion to principle, he is as gentle
as a woman, and as single-hearted as a child : and his over-
whelming kindliness sweeps away all possibility of bitterness.
His mingled humour and pathos and dramatic power are well
nigh irresistible ; and though men may feel bound to vote
against him they have often been constrained to weep with him.
As these pages have shown, Will Crooks was in our
movement from its earliest stages.
At the first meeting of
the National Committee he and I were most resolute in
urging that Pensions should be made a test question at all
elections. He had done our cause splendid service on many
a platform. At Woolwich he was opposed by a former
Secretary of the Liberty and Property Defence League — a
man who had declared that " thriftlessness and want of back-
bone are the chief causes of destitution of the working
classes in old age," and that "working men do not want
Pensions." The officers of the National Committee accord-
ingly signed a manifesto calling on the electors of Woolwich,
without respect of Party, to vote for " Crooks and Justice
to the Aged." And when Mr. Crooks was returned by 8,687
votes against 5,458, he declared the result to be " an over-
whelming mandate for Old Age Pensions."
164
WILL CROOKS, M.P.
DEFEAT
165
The Budget of
1903.
His election was felt to mark a new era. Even The Times Witness of
could say : ' ' What it too clearly means is that the ' Labour " Tfte Times."
movement ' which has disturbed the balance of political
Parties on the Continent has made itself manifest in a
practical form here also, and that the nation at large, as
well as both political Parties in the State, will have to reckon
with it." Nowhere was the change marked by Mr. Crooks's
arrival in the House of Commons more warmly welcomed
than among the promoters of Old Age Pensions. From him
we had no paternal warnings against over-zeal, or evasive
promises. He was one of ourselves, heart and soul with us
from first to last.
The Budget, which had been anticipated with so many
hopes and fears, round the prospect of which our agitation
for the last eight months had rallied, was introduced on
April 23rd. The Government had a surplus of more than
ten millions to dispose of. It repealed the duty on corn and
flour, thereby sacrificing over two millions. It took 46.
off the income tax, thus making a present of ten millions
sterling to the middle and upper classes. But there was not
a penny for Old Age Pensions. The Government had made
its choice. The opportunity was before it to make an
important contribution towards the permanent relief of the
aged, or to add to the comfort of the comfortable and well-
to-do classes. And it deliberately chose the latter alter-
native. It left the aged in their misery. That choice branded
the men who made it.
We could only enter our indignant protest. On May 12th Indignant
was issued the following manifesto : — protest.
' The National Committee of Organized Labour desire to
record their emphatic condemnation of the action of the
Government in refusing to use any part of the surplus on
the Budget for the relief of the most helpless of his Majesty's
subjects, the aged poor. With the exception of the corn tax,
everything that has been done has been done in the interests
of the well-to-do. The first step might have been taken to
constitute an Old Age Pension system. It was a Member of
the present Cabinet, the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain,
M.P., who said at Birmingham on December 6th, 1894,
speaking on Pensions for the aged : —
" ' A great scheme of this kind should not be proposed to
Parliament until some Chancellor of the Exchequer shall come
who shall have a surplus, not a deficit, to deal with. You
will remember that we waited a long time for free education,
but there came a time when, under the administration of a
Chancellor of the Exchequer whom I will not name, there was
166 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
a very fruitful surplus, and that surplus was at once applied
to give to the working classes the greatest boon that has been
given them during my political time. My hope is that under
another Administration, and another Chancellor of the
Exchequer, we may return to a period of prosperity, to a
period of surplus, and my hope and belief is that these sur-
pluses may be used in order to stimulate the provision of
those Old Age Pensions.' "
" The Chancellor and the surplus have come, but not Old
Age Pensions. The will of the people has been declared in
every possible way. During the past five months meetings
have been held in every part of the United Kingdom, at which
resolutions were passed unanimously demanding Old Age
Pensions before any substantial reduction of taxation. Some
of these meetings were of immense proportions, and all were
in the fullest degree representative. They are entirely ignored
by his Majesty's present advisers for the sake of the wealthier
classes. This is simply class legislation in its worst form ; it
is anti-national in its tendency, and is in direct violation of
the promises of the last ten years. It was the Party now in
power who told the nation that a better treatment of the aged
poor was possible. The nation believed these words, and they
have been miserably defrauded and deceived, and we still
remain behind nearly every other nation in the civilized world
in our clumsy and blundering efforts to solve this form of the
poverty problem. And the leaders of the Opposition have
been as silent as the Government have been inactive, and have
proved conclusively, for those who needed proof, that Labour
owes no fealty to either Party when questions of social reform
are pressing for solution."
Uproar over Three days after this protest was issued came the famous
Tariff Reform, speech at Birmingham (May 15th), in which Mr. Chamber-
lain launched on his raging and tearing agitation for Tariff
Reform. Just when the leaders of Labour had set in strong
relief the clear contrast between his promises and his per-
formances, the right honourable gentleman plunged into the
vortex which ended his career as social reformer and as
responsible statesman. The national uproar which followed
tended to drown all voices except such as shouted for or
against the existing system of oversea trade. Both Parties
showed a disposition to drop social for fiscal discussion.
The immediate prospect of legislation in the interests of the
aged was dimmed. For the Party in power looked now,
as ever, to Mr. Chamberlain to give them the lead on Old
Age Pensions, and would not act apart from his initiative.
Initiative from him on that question was made highly
improbable by his absorption in Tariff Reform.
DEFEAT r 6 7
This improbability became more clear in the debate in the Mr. Remnant's
House of Commons on the second reading of Mr. Remnant's BUI.
Aged Pensioners' Bill. This Bill proposed to empower
Committees of Boards of Guardians to grant pensions of
5s. or 7s. a week to the deserving poor at the age of 65.
The cost was put at six and a half millions— three millions
to come from the Treasury, three and a half millions from
rates. From our point of view the Bill was defective, in
limiting pensions to the poor and deserving, in connecting
pensions with the Poor Law, and in drawing part of the
cash from the ratepayer. Its sole importance lay in the
debate which it excited.
Mr. Fenwick, among others, dealt faithfully with the Mr.
Government in its repeated failures to fulfil the hopes it had Chamberlain's
excited. He urged the House to insist on the question s P eech '
being dealt with at once. A vigorous attack from Mr.
Lloyd-George roused Mr. Chamberlain into a speech which
has only a personal and almost obituary significance. Again
he inveighed against universal Pensions as impossible and
undesirable. The proposal which he first advocated had
he admitted, been rejected by public opinion, and was now
a dead question." "That having failed, he then turned
his attention to the question how far progress could be made
in the same direction with the help of the Friendly Societies,"
and he had urged them to contribute some scheme. "That
really, in brief, is the history of my connection with this
matter." Pensions were not dead : the chief obstacles were
not insuperable. Before the Government could get any such
scheme as that of Mr. Chaplin's Committee, which was
estimated to cost ten millions, it must know where it was
going to get the funds. Mr. Chamberlain ended by saying that
though it might not be impossible to find the funds, " that no
doubt will involve a review of that fiscal system which I have
indicated as necessary and desirable at an early date "*
Melancholy indeed is the spectacle here presented of a tk- • t
statesman deliberately blind to" the facts immediately befor^ ^T ' "
him. The Government, of which he was a leading member
had actually at that moment an estimated surplus as yet
unvoted away of more than ten millions sterling Yet Mr
Chamberlain said, before the Government could consider
the scheme of Mr. Chaplin's Committee, which would cost
ten millions, it must know where the money wa s to come
* In a , lett " {«ted June 3rd, Mr. Chamberlain expressed himself even more
strongly than he had done m the House of Commons. He said : "As regards
Old Age Pens.ons, I would not myself look at the matter unless I felt able to
prom.se that a large scheme for the provision of such pensions to all who have
been thnfty and well-conducted would be assured by a revision of our system of
1 68 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Shelved again.
A conspicuous
omission.
Profession
without
practice.
from. With ten millions in his pocket, so to speak, he says,
" I think it may not be impossible to find the funds." But
there is never an allusion to that outstanding feature of
the situation. There is, however, the cry suggested of
" Pensions by way of Tariff Reform."
As that cry meant Pensions after Tariff Reform, it was
the postponement of Pensions, so far as Mr. Chamberlain
and Mr. Chamberlain's Government were concerned, to the
Greek kalends. Yet Mr. Long could claim that ' that
debate constituted a step forward on this subject." And
The Times indulged in the comment, " The aged poor must
not be too sanguine, but their prospects of relief seem to
be definitely more promising than they have been at any
previous stage of the discussion."
One of the most signal features of this debate, as reported
in The Times, was the conspicuous absence of any allusion
to the ten millions surplus then at the disposal of the
Government, as a possible and immediate source of Old
Age Pensions. Mr. Long remarked that the two sides of
the House had come nearer together. They certainly seemed
to be at one in the tacit assumption that the middle-class
income tax payer must first be relieved, that the misery of
the aged poor was not for one moment to be considered
as against the greater comfort of the well-to-do. The ten
millions represented by the fourpence on the income tax
were there, — ready for the old folks, if the House chose so
to decide. But not one speaker even hinted at this as a
possible appropriation of the surplus. And Mr. Long could
wax pathetic in declaring how strongly he felt the demand
made, not only upon their sympathy but upon their Christ-
ianity, by the condition of many people in the country.
He did not know any sadder sight than that presented
in many of our country villages, " where men and women
who had laboured to the utmost of their capacity, and had
been sober, thrifty, and industrious, found themselves com-
pelled at last to take refuge in the Poor Law." I have
no doubt that Mr. Long was entirely sincere in what he
said. But the fact remains that at that very moment he and
his Government had wealth sufficient in their hands to give
a pension of 5s. a week to three-quarters of a million old
folks, and would not give it. They gave it instead to the
middle-class tax-payer. That fact is about as odious a
commentary on unctuous sympathy as one could well find in
recent annals. The second reading was carried without a
division, and the Bill politely shelved.
" They say, and do not."
DEFEAT 169
But this gross discrepancy between saying and doing was An awkward
not allowed to pass wholly without challenge. We now had in Resolution.
Parliament a representative who meant business, and meant
it at once. Mr. Will Crooks gave notice of his intention
to move on the second reading of the Finance Bill, " That
no Bill will meet with the approval of this House which
does not provide for the appropriation of the surplus at the
disposal of the Government to the claims of the aged poor
before all other claims for relief."
This resolution raised the issue in the most direct manner.
It enabled every man in every Party who really wanted
Pensions to register his convictions. But it was obviously
an awkward resolution for the Parties to face. It compelled
them explicitly to avow their practice and to disavow their
profession. Their profession was to legislate in the interests
of the working classes. Their practice was to legislate in
the interest of the middle classes. Neither Party dare have
voted to deprive the income tax payer of the relief promised
him by the Budget. Both Parties preferred, without, of
course, brutally saying so — to deprive the worn-out work-
man of his long-expected pension. That was the bottom
fact of the situation. More obvious was the fact that the
Unionists could not carry the resolution without upsetting
their Government. The Liberals could not vote for it with-
out pledging themselves beyond recall to enact Pensions as
soon as they were in power. So prickly a resolution must
be got out of the way. It was ruled out of order by the "Out of order."
Speaker. His grounds were, I understand, that the initia-
tive of expenditure can only come from the Government : it
cannot come from a private Member. Certainly, in sup-
pressing Mr. Crooks's motion the Speaker expressed, as it
is his function to express, the preponderant feeling of the
House. Certainly, too, as in preventing the Commons from
thoroughly discussing, with the freedom of the Lords, the
fiscal policy of the Government, the Speaker saved the
Government from a very embarrassing dilemma.
Mr. Crooks could not move his resolution. But he was Will Crooks'
neither daunted nor silenced. In the course of the debate on advice.
the Finance Bill on June 9th, he said : —
" We are going to take the duty off corn, and to relieve
the income tax payers to the extent of about ten millions.
I do not know of any better use that can be made of the
surplus we now have than by giving Old Age Pensions
straight away. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer finds
himself with a surplus, instead of getting up and suggesting
i-jo HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
that now at last there is an opportunity of fulfilling the
pledges which were given to the country, without any
increase in the burden of taxation, and of meeting a large
portion of the demand for Old Age Pensions, he starts
another hare which we are to chase. That has happened
over and over again. ... I make this appeal to the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer. Take this corn tax off, but keep
the income tax on. In that way he will be able to meet a
very large proportion of the demand of the working classes
of this country for Old Age Pensions. I regret that the
rules of the House will not permit me to move the amend-
ment I proposed to move."
Beaten The long battle of the Budget was over. We had been
utterly defeated in Parliament. The autumn and winter
which we had spent in untiring agitation for " Pensions in
1903 " had failed of result. There was no lack of money
available for the immediate inauguration of Pensions. The
surplus was there. The case was made out. Outside the
House the voice of Labour was unmistakable. The old folks
were wearily waiting. All was in vain. We failed of our
objective. Pensions in 1903 had not been obtained.
W T ho was to blame?
First, and as most culpable, must be ranked the selfish-
ness of the middle and upper classes. Rather than forego
the comparatively trifling relief of 4d. off the income tax
they would leave the old folks in misery and ignominy. If
the income tax had not been reduced, it would not have
deprived those who paid it of a single meal. It would not
have disfranchised them. It would at most have curtailed
their comfort, or diminished their luxuries. But to three-
quarters of a million of the aged poor it would have meant
freedom from starvation, retention of civil rights, the sal-
vation of self-respect. How many homes have been broken
up, how many an aged toiler has been cast into the dungeon
of the workhouse, how many an aged heart has broken, how
many multitudes of hoary heads have gone down with sorrow
to the grave, how many have slowly starved to death — for
want of the pension which might have been theirs in 1903 !
They have been sacrificed at the sordid shrine of middle-class
and upper-class comfort.
"Dumb dogs The representatives of these classes in Parliament are
are they all." involved in the same condemnation. They might have risen
to the great opportunity. They might have appealed to the
nobler instincts of the comfortable and well-to-do. They
might have roused the patriotism which would continue for
the worn-out worker the sacrifices that had been made for
the man in Khaki. But there was never a cheep or a mutter
Why?
Selfishness of
the well-to-do.
DEFEAT
171
or a murmur of suggestion from either Unionist or Liberal
ranks that the surplus should go to the indigent aged rather
than to the income tax payer. There was protestation enough
of sympathy with impoverished age, but not the whisper of
a penny piece for its relief out of all the ten million pounds
to spare.
The responsibility deepens as we come to the Government,
and to the man whom that Government and his followers
regarded as above all others the champion of the aged poor.
He was given his opportunity of realizing the ambition he
had repeatedly and eloquently expressed, of lightening the
lot and brightening the declining years of the veterans of
industry. He made "the great refusal." No sentence of
doom is so terrible as the simple statement of that fact.
But I should be wanting in my duty as a recorder of this
movement if I sought to exempt from the general responsi-
bility incurred by the House of Commons the then Labour
Members. I make every allowance for the disheartening
position in which they had for so long found themselves.
But 1 must repeat here the profound regret which I expressed
at the fourth annual meeting of the National Committee of
Organized Labour, that the Labour Members had taken no
opportunity of compelling the House to declare by debate
or division whether the available surplus should go to
increase the comfort of the comfortable classes, or be used
to meet the just and long-neglected claims of superannuated
Labour. In the debates on the Finance Bill, the House was
asked to divide in the interest of the tea-drinker, in the
interest of the corn-grower, but never once in the interest of
two million aged citizens. Mr. Thomas Burt did indeed
render great service by obtaining the promise of a Return
as to the number and age of recipients of Poor Law relief.
Mr. Fenwick pressed for immediate legislation on Old Age
Pensions. But Mr. Will Crooks 's was the only voice raised
from the Labour Bench to demand that Pensions should
precede remission of taxes. This was the demand of the
working classes, frequently and cogently expressed ; it had
been endorsed by the most representative Labour leaders. It
had been generally approved by Labour Members in the
House. But all this mass of opinion only found vent in
Parliament through the disallowed resolution and unreported
speech of one Member, Will Crooks.
The obvious lessons of the battle on which we had staked
so much, and in which we had been so completely worsted,
were that for Pensions we must look to a new House of
Commons, and still more to an increase of independent
Labour Members of the type of Mr. Crooks.
"The great
refusal."
General silence
of the "Lib-
Lab." M.P.'s.
The moral of
defeat.
F._ FROM DEFEAT TO VICTORY
CHAPTER XXXIII
HEARTS FAILING FOR FEAR
Reasons for
Despair.
Not possible in
this
generation.
Our discomfiture in Parliament resulted, not unnaturally,
in the serious discouragement of many of our friends. The
situation presented also several other disheartening features.
There was the public preoccupation with the controversies
which raged around Education and Tariff Reform. More
serious still was the huge expenditure which the War had
left behind. A widespread feeling of the hopelessness of our
quest found a typical expression as early as March, 1903, in
a letter from one who was in principle entirely with us.
Writing to a meeting we held at King's Lynn, Sir Brampton
Gurdon, M.P., said: —
" If ever Old Age Pensions are given, they must practically
be universal, and not simply good conduct prizes. But I am
afraid I must adhere to what I said at the General Election —
that the enormous cost of the War would render any scheme
of Old Age Pensions impossible during my lifetime. This
has been confirmed by Mr. Long, the President of the Local
Government Board. Any Member of Parliament who, for
the sake of popularity, encourages his constituents to believe
that in face of the present heavy taxation and large accumula-
tion of debt, it will be possible for any Government to take
up the question during the present generation, will be pursuing
a very dishonest course, as he cannot but be aware that he is
promising what he cannot perform."
With this spirit abroad, we could not wonder when
adherents fell back and subscribers withdrew their support.
Trade Unions and Trades Councils are bound to look care-
fully for prospect of immediate result before they part with
their hard-earned cash. Personal contributors began to ask
themselves, Was it worth while maintaining an organisation
172
HEARTS FAILING FOR FEAR
173
for the promotion of Pensions, when even its warmest well-
wishers have no hope of legislation in this generation? As
the winter advanced, the outlook for our National Committee
grew iinancially very dark. The intended withdrawal of one Should we
who had from the first been a leading supporter of the move- £' ve U P*
ment led other prominent friends seriously to consider the
question of continuing their support. And on the answer to
that question hung the future of the Committee. They did
me, however, the very great honour and kindness of making
their action depend on my decision. They were good enough
to refer to the part entrusted to me in the origination of the
Committee, and to say that if I felt it ought to continue,
they would still support it. If I thought otherwise, they
would withdraw.
Anyone who has read the opening chapters of this book
will be in no doubt as to my answer. I could not have a
moment's misgiving. I might despair of the present Parlia-
ment, but I was quite sure of the people. I was confident,
too, that there was plenty of taxable wealth to supply, even
under the South African burden, the pensions which justice
demanded. Then, too, the Labour Representation Committee
was selecting constituencies and candidates, with a fair
prospect of securing the return of Labour Members attached
to neither of the traditional Parties, and devoted to our end.
But, as is obvious, my conviction was not based on any
estimate of electoral or financial possibilities. It rested on
the " signs that went before." The indications of the Will
which had called our movement into being were to me abso-
lutely unmistakable. The purpose so marvellously revealed
and so unexpectedly confirmed would, in spite of war and
war burdens, be carried through. Our duty was to go forward
unhesitatingly.
That was my reply. The friends who consulted me were Forward!
satisfied. They have never wavered nor faltered from that
day to this in their loyal support of the cause, which they too
felt had been committed to us.
All this time Mr. Rogers had been pushing forward the
agitation in town and country with all his might. To his
other labours he added the burden of authorship. In the
autumn of 1903 Messrs. Isbister began the " Pro and Con " "Pensions
series with a book on Old Age Pensions. Mr. Frederick Pro and Con.'
Rogers contributed 120 pages "pro "; Mr. Frederick Millar,
Secretary to the Liberty and Property Defence League, con-
tributed 90 pages "con." The secretarial position of both
writers suggests at once their respective standpoints. Both
traced in outline the history of the Pensions movement.
174 H OW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
First charge
on Surplus
Wealth.
The dying
cause.
Both cited Colonial and Continental experience. Both pro-
fessed to draw their conclusions from admitted facts. But
the conclusions were diametrically opposite. Mr. Rogers'
study was couched in the spirit of the noblest idealism. His
survey of the facts led up to an almost Miltonic appeal to his
fellow-countrymen to rise above their traditional narrowness
and accept the emancipation of great ideas. His Remedy
was thus stated : —
" There is one way, and one only, by which there is a chance
of successfully dealing with the problem of the aged poor. It
is that the nation shall set aside annually, as a first charge
upon its income from all sources, a given sum to be used as
Pensions for its aged citizens who are past work. The
accumulated wealth of a nation is the joint product of all its
people, and not the product of any particular class. Any
and every civilised nation produces more than its immediate
needs require ; produces, that is to say, a greater or less
amount of surplus wealth.
"It is then equitable that those who cannot produce,
whether from childhood and ignorance, or age and feebleness,
shall have their support from the surplus wealth, should the
need for it arise. We must face this principle, and institute
in the place of our present system of Poor-relief a national
system of State Pensions."
Mr. Millar's general argument may be gathered from a
single sentence : —
" To contend that persons who simply will not save and
invest their savings for their own advantage should have their
thriftlessness encouraged at the expense of the community
is surely a proposal too unblushing in its effrontery to need
further remark. "
It is only fair to let the dying groan of a discredited indi-
vidualism be heard. Mr. Millar enumerates what he calls
" economic and social objections " against State-aided Old
Age Pensions. These are : the danger arising from multi-
plying the functions of the State ; the enormous burden laid
on the taxpayer; "they would cause a fall in wages "; they
would " encourage wasteful expenditure " during the whole
of the working life; they would be " a further application of
the principle of communism " ; the grave danger of pensioners
possessing also a vote ; the injury to thrift and industry and
national character. Mr. Millar examines the working of the
measure abroad, and claims to have shown "the baneful
effects of these pensions wherever they have been adopted."
He submits that " in point of argument, fact and experience,
the case against their adoption in this country is over-
whelming. "
HEARTS FAILING FOR FEAR
175
The juxtaposition of the two arguments " pro " and " con "
in one volume was an admirable idea, and one most helpful to
our cause. Mr. Rogers's case is strong enough by itself. It
is immensely strengthened by the weakness of his opponent's.
Happily more formidable forces than a mere array of argu-
ment were gathering to our aid. Both of the historic Parties
had, as we have seen, been tried in the balances of the
Budget of 1903 and had been found wanting. Before another
Budget appeared, fresh proof was given that Providence was
raising up a new Party in the State to do what the old Parties
had failed to do. In February, 1904, just when Parliament
was reassembling, the Labour Representation Committee
met in conference at St. George's Hall, Bradford, and
definitely committed the nascent Labour Party to our prin-
ciple. The resolution was moved by Mr. G. Cole, of the
Plasterers' Union, and seconded — most appropriately — by
Mr. Frederick Rogers, and was couched in the following
terms : —
' Considering that the prosperity of the nation depends
upon those who produce the wealth (the workers), it is but
just that they in old age should receive pensions without
any disability whatever, especially when we find that the
Army, Naval, and Civil Services are pensioned after thirty
years' service, this Conference instructs the Labour Party in
the House of Commons to draft and bring in a Bill to pension
all men and women after the age of sixty years, the funds to
meet same to be raised from the same source as the
^250,000,000 expended upon the late war in South Africa."
Old Age Pensions became henceforth the first plank of
social reform in the platform of the Labour Party.
The new Party might be the instrument, but the agent
must be the nation as a whole. Our appeal was directed, as
heretofore, to the rank and file of all Parties and Schools.
In Parliament the Pensions movement could now hope to
find only an educative and not a legislative agency. Again
the King's Speech appeared (February 2nd, 1904) without
any word of Pensions. And again we had difficulty in getting
a Member to move an amendment. Good old Mr. Broad-
hurst, who had not, as it happened, joined our Committee,
but was one of the very first of our legislators to advocate
universal Pensions, came to our rescue, late on the opening
night, and sent in notice of the following amendment : —
11 And that this House, having regard to the deplorable
condition of large numbers of your Majesty's aged subjects,
humbly expresses its regret that your Majesty's Speech
contains no promise of a measure to provide Pensions for
the Aged."
A new weapon
being forged.
Mr.
Broadhurst's
amendment.
176 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
" Pastime
without
Result."
Hypocrisy
jinmasked.
The introduction of two Pension Bills prevented, as before,
this amendment from being discussed. The Budget, when
it was divulged on April 19th, showed a prospective deficit of
over three millions, to meet which an extra penny was put on
the income tax and an extra twopence on tea. There was no
foothold there for the claims of the aged. On May 6th,
Mr. Goulding's Aged Pensioners' Bill was discussed. It was
similar to Mr. Remnant's measure of the previous year,
bestowing pensions by Poor Law Union Committees without
disfranchising the recipient ; the cost, now reckoned at eight
millions, to be met half from the Imperial and half from the
local treasury. There was not much hint of hope in the
debate. Mr. Will Crooks, who deeply moved the House by
his pathetic pictures of aged indigence, described these dis-
cussions as "pastime without result." Mr. Long 'laid
stress on the immense practical difficulties in the way of all
Old Age Pension schemes," and then referred to the
humanizing of the workhouse and the frequency of outdoor
relief. Comfort for paupers apparently was to salve the
conscience of a Parliament that had refused cash for
pensioners.
Perhaps the most important speech of the evening was
made by Sir Michael Hicks Beach, who, having been
Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1895 to 1902, was in a
position to speak with authority on what may be described
as the financial intelligence and the financial purpose of the
Unionist Government. According to the official report, he
said : —
" He thought this House ought to be honest. Did any of
them believe it was possible for an Old Age Pension scheme to
become law? There was much that would dispose many of
them to vote in favour of Old Age Pensions on the ground of
sentiment : but the more the subject had been examined, the
more impossible, to his mind, it had become to carry out any
scheme consistently with any possible charge that could be
put on the ratepayers or the taxpayers. If that were so, he
thought they owed it to the people of this country that they
should have the courage of their convictions. If they believed
the scheme impossible, they ought to vote against the Second
Reading of the Bill."
This deliverance from the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer
proved conclusively how hollow and unreal had been the talk
of his colleagues in 1898 and 1899 about early Pensions
legislation. It will be remembered that this same Sir Michael
Hicks Beach was in charge of the national finances at a
time when Mr. Chamberlain (April 25th, 1899) declared,
HEARTS FAILING FOR FEAR l?7
' What we have said again and again, and what we are
prepared to say now, is that we hcpe and intend to deal with
this matter before we leave office. " It should also be remem-
bered that it was with the hopes of more than a million of
the aged trembling on the borders of starvation or destitution
that these right honourable gentlemen were amusing them-
selves.
In spite of Sir Michael Hicks Beach's protest, Mr. Goulden's
Bill was read a second time, and committed.
On the same day as these exposures of the good faith of
British statesmen had taken place, the return ordered at Mr.
Burt's request was issued. The conclusory summary may be
given here : —
1st
August,
1890.
1st
January,
1S92.
1st
July,
1899.
IGt
January,
1900.
1st
Sept.,
1903.
(i) Paupers 16 years of age
and upwards ...
471,568
469,980
494,600
(2) Paupers 65 years of age
49 ,5I3
and upwards .
245,687
268,307
278,7-8
286,929
284,265
(3) Ratio per cent, of paupers
65 years of age and up-
wards (figures in 2) to
total number of paupers
16 years of age and up-
wards (figures in 1) ...
(4) Ratio per cent, of total
...
56.9
59-3
58.O
58.O
number of paupers 65
years of age and up-
wards to total number
of persons of the same
18.0
19.4
18.7
19.2
18.3
(5) Ratio per cent, of indoor
paupers 65 years of age
and upwards to total
paupers 65 years of age
and upwards
22.3
23.6
23.9
26.0
26.5
On this Mr. Rogers observed : —
" In comparing the figures in the different columns of the
above table, allowance must be made for the fact that the
number of paupers is always higher in January than in July,
August, or September, and also for the fact that the returns
for August 1st, 1890, and September ist, 1903, excluded,
whereas the returns did not exclude persons who were only
in receipt of relief constructively by reason of relief being
given to wives and children. After making such allowances
178 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
it appears that the proportion of paupers over 65 years of age
in the total number of adult paupers has not varied much,
though it has risen since January 1st, 1892, and that the
proportion of paupers over 65 years of age to the estimated
number of persons in England and Wales over that age on
the respective dates has remained almost the same. The
total number of paupers over 65 years of age has on each date
formed more than half the total number of paupers over
16 years of age. The table shows that a larger proportion of
the total number of aged paupers has been relieved by admis-
sion to workhouses and infirmaries on each succeeding dates. "
The agitation was advancing in Parliament a little, in the
Press more, most of all in the country. Our demands were
embodied in resolutions carried unanimously in Labour
gatherings. Mr. Rogers addressed 4,000 men on the subject
at the Church Congress. He also expounded our scheme
before an International Congress held in Edinburgh in June,
and his speeches were translated into several languages. The
seed thus sown oversea has in later years borne, unexpected
Stinting our fruit. But alas ! the funds supplied to the National Committee
Secretary. did not by any means keep pace with its needs. Mr. Rogers
thus describes the steps which were taken in consequence : —
"In the month of March I found it necessary to bring our
financial position before the Executive. One of our most
generous subscribers had found it impossible to continue his
subscription during the present year, and our funds were low.
Politics were in confusion and there seemed little hope of
any immediate practical work, and with the full consent of
the chairman, vice-chairman, and sub-committee, I agreed
to continue mv office without salary for twelve months, and
also to work for twelve months with Messrs. Rowntree and
Sherwell on their scheme of Constructive Temperance Reform,
using what funds we had for necessary work, such as printing,
postage, etc. In doing this I have had the gratuitous and
valuable help of Mr. Cecil Catford, a resident of Browning
Hall, who has looked after things when I have been absent
from London, I meanwhile continuing the public work of the
movement as heretofore. The work has been longer than
we thought for at first, but we have had loyal supporters and
faithful friends, and if we all resolve to keep it steadily in the
forefront of politics, it is the one piece of constructive
legislation before the country to-day, and we shall yet see the
reward of our labours.
" But it will be reached only by continued effort, and for
this we look to the Labour Members more than to any other
section of politicians."
HEARTS FAILING FOR FEAR i 79
Then Mr. Rogers found it necessary to speak a word in A word to
season to stir up the somewhat otiose tendencies of the Labour Labour M.P.'s
group in Parliament : —
' We have always realized the loyalty of the Labour men
to our cause, and owe more than we can ever repay to Mr
Crooks, M.P., and Mr. Burt, M.P., for what they have done!
But there must be a greater response inside the House to the
agitation outside; there must be more skirmishing now if
there is to be a fight to a finish in the future, and every
representative of Labour ought to realize that this cause can
only be won by persistent fighting, and not by merely waiting
on whatever Providence there may be in politics for a chance
I know they believe in this cause, and for the sake of them-
selves, and those of their order who in their age and feebleness
fall beneath the wheels of our social Juggernaut, they ought
to fight for it better in the future than they have in the past "
CHAPTER XXXIV
A MEMORABLE BYE-ELECTION
The Parliament of 1900 had more reason than the Merry
Monarch to apologise for being such an unconscionable
time in dying. After the end of the war, its demise was felt
to be decently due. And the longer it protracted its mori-
bund existence, the more eagerly did the nation look forward
to the inevitable end. As a Committee we were resolved that
so far as we could influence public opinion, the old policy of
shuffle and make-believe about Pensions should be tolerated
no longer. Accordingly, Mr. Rogers drew up and printed
on August 31st, 1904, the following leaflet : —
PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES AND OLD AGE PENSIONS.
" A General Election may at any moment be upon us, and it
will be necessary for all friends of Old Age Pensions to be
ready with questions for candidates. The National Com-
mittee, therefore, have issued the following suggestions as
to the ' heckling ' of candidates. It will be found that on
this subject candidates may be divided into three categories :
(1) People who have thought the subject out, and have come
to the conclusion that Old Age Pensions are an equitable
and necessary reform ; (2) honest opponents ; (3) wobblers,
who are not sure where they are, and who occasionally show
considerable talent in evading a straight answer to a straight
question. The first category are safe, whatever Party they
may belong to. An honest opponent is worth the trouble
of conversion, and may sometimes be converted ; it is the
Short shrift wobbler who is the danger. In questioning a creature of
hffl *^ S type on Old Age Pensions there are certain stereotyped
replies, largely supplied by the election agent, with which
the ' heckler ' must in no way be satisfied. Here is a
sample of the kind of dialogue that often takes place between
questioner and candidate : —
Q. — " Are you in favour of pensions for the aged in place
of Poor Law Relief?"
180
A MEMORABLE BYE-ELECTION 181
A. — " I am willing to support any well-considered scheme
of pensions " ; or
" I am in favour of pensions provided they do not
hinder the work of the Friendly Societies " ; or
" I am in favour of pensions for thrifty and deserving
persons " ; or
" I am in favour of some scheme of Old Age Pensions,
but have not yet seen one that satisfied me." 1
" The first answer is an evasion, and the candidates should
be informed of the fact, and told that there is a well-consi-
dered scheme — that of the National Committee of Organized
Labour — is he in favour of that?
" The second answer is an evasion also ; but the candidates
should be told that in Manchester, in March, 1902, the
National Conference of Friendly Societies voted in favour
of the State providing pensions for all persons over the age
of 65 who are unable to work, and in need of the same, and
that five Trade Union Congresses and two Co-operative
Congresses have given a vote for Old Age Pensions.
" To the third the reply can be made that you cannot define
the words ' thrifty ' and ' deserving ' satisfactorily, and
that all alike would have to pay for the pensions, and that,
therefore, all would have an equal claim.
" To the last the answer should be that no politician ought
to be without an opinion on a subject like this ; that ample
literature exists on the subject ; and that the National Com-
mittee of Organized Labour, whose offices are at Browning
Hall, Walworth, will supply him with all information.
" Remember that the only logical and equitable system is
the universal system, that all must pay to the Pension Fund,
therefore all can claim if they desire. That the Friendly
Societies themselves have given up the idea of endowment
or special treatment, that such an idea is unjust because
it would endow the well-paid artisan at the expense of the
ill-paid, that every form of organized Labour has declared
itself in favour of Old Age Pensions, that there is a steady
increase in our national wealth year by year, and that Old
Age Pensions can be created, and ought to be."
Electors armed with this leaflet were likely to make the
path of the waverer and the tergiversator a thorny one.
By way of preliminary skirmish, the regular course of our i s i e f Thanet,
agitation was varied every now and then by the occurrence 1904.
of a contested bye-election. The candidates on both sides
were usually approached, and according to the answers they
182 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Horsham,
1904.
Captured in
the nick of
time.
gave the National Committee either declared both candi-
dates satisfactory, or pronounced in favour of the more
satisfactory of the two. This action was taken entirely
independent of Party.
In the Isle of Thanet (October, 1904), my old college
friend, Mr. Joseph King, was fighting in the Liberal interest
against Mr. Marks, a Unionist, whose commercial record
excited grave misgivings in the breasts of many loyal
Unionists. We questioned both candidates, and issued a
manifesto which closed : "From Mr. Marks we have received
no satisfactory assurance. Mr. King has pronounced him-
self in favour of Old Age Pensions as a civil right. It is
therefore our duty to recommend that you vote for King."
Unfortunately the tactics of Mr. Marks triumphed at the
polls.
During the same month a vacancy occurred at Horsham,
in Sussex. I happened to rent a small cottage in that
charming rural resort, as a summer retreat from the stifling
heat of Walworth streets. I was therefore an elector. As
soon as the vacancy was announced, I cycled down to
Horsham through a country all aglow with autumn
colour. I meant to hunt up the candidates. I arrived
before the Unionist candidate was so much as chosen.
I went therefore to the Liberal Committee Rooms. I was
assured that Mr. Lestocq Erskine, the Liberal candidate,
was "strong on Pensions," and had a paragraph dealing
with the subject in his address. That address was in type,
but had not yet been published. I was offered a sight of it
in proof. I replied that as I was not of the Party and
wished to hold myself free from any Party entanglements, I
would see nothing that was not open to the public. I
obtained the private address of Mr. Erskine, and cycled out
to his place, which was some miles away. It was a delightful
autumn morning. I found a trap standing before the door,
and the candidate himself in the hall ready to mount the
vehicle. I soon acquainted him with the purpose of my
call. He assured me that he was a determined advocate of
Old Age Pensions ; he had always made a strong point of
it in his speeches. He found it was a most popular subject
with the electors. I invited him to pledge himself to vote
for Universal Pensions, and for Pensions before reduction
of taxation. I produced the familiar postcard with the
printed form of the two-fold pledge, and asked him to sign
there and then. He did so.
He then said he was just riding down to town to meet
a gentleman from the Liberal Central Association.
A MEMORABLE BYE-ELECTION
183
1 was glad I had seen him first !
Mr. Erskine courteously invited me to accompany him. I "Mum's the
declined, as I had a friend waiting for me outside. The wor( »'
candidate mounted the trap and drove off to meet the
gentleman from the Liberal Central Association. What
followed after that meeting was significant. The Liberal
address appeared, but with no mention of Pensions. The
paragraph of which I had been assured had evidently been
erased. The Liberal candidate began making speeches. I
saw reports of them. There was not a word in them about
Pensions. It required no Sherlock Holmes to see that
official Liberalism had discountenanced any reference to
Pensions.
I next endeavoured to get hold of the Unionist candidate, — in both
Lord Tumour. But in vain. His address appeared, also Parties.
without a line about Pensions. Both Parties clearly meant
to shelve the question. The bitter need of more than a
million old folks was apparently to be ignored for Party
convenience.
This was not to be tolerated.
Happily there were forces of God permanently mobilized The Church of
in Horsham who were not under control of the Party drill God not
sergeant. There were the Churches. So I drafted the muz2 ' e d-
following entirely non-Party manifesto. I cycled to the new
Vicar of Horsham. He was just moving into the Vicarage.
The furniture was being carried into the rooms. Standing
at the door he perused the document, pondered several
minutes, and then signed. I next secured the signature of
the Roman Catholic priest, who read and signed in silence.
With the prompt and energetic aid of Mr. Stanley Alfred
Talbot, son of the pastor of the Horsham Congregational
Church, other signatures were obtained. Finally the
manifesto appeared as follows : —
ON BEHALF OF THE AGED POOR.
To the Candidates in the forthcoming Election of a Member
of Parliament for the Horsham Division.
Gentlemen, — We, the undersigned Ministers of Religion
in the Parliamentary Division of Horsham, desire to
approach you, irrespective of the Party to which you may
belong, on behalf of a large, and needy, and sadly
neglected class of His Majesty's subjects. We urge on you
the claims of the aged poor.
According to the estimate of Lord Rothschild's Com-
mittee, two-thirds of the population over 65 years of age are
unprovided for except by the degrading and disfranchising
1 84 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
action of the Poor Law. That two-thirds of the aged
dwelling in this Christian land should be left with no other
prospect for their declining years than pauperism, or depen-
dence on often over-burdened relatives, or starvation, is to
our minds a foul blot upon our national escutcheon ; it is a
crime against humanity : it is a sin against God.
Time and again the House of Commons has passed without
a division the second reading of one or other Bill to provide
pensions for the aged. We observe a general readiness on
the part of candidates to express a willingness to vote for
some measure of Old Age Pensions.
We desire to press upon you our urgent hope that you
will not content yourselves with academic expressions of
benevolent interest in the condition of the aged, or with
vague promises to vote, if returned to Parliament, for
undefined measures designed to mitigate their lot, but that
you will use your best influence and power, during this
contest, and, if returned, in the House of Commons, to
force this question of Pensions to the front of legislative
attention, and that you will yourselves make a straight-
forward and definite pronouncement of the way in which
you propose to deal with it.
We are aware of the vast number of questions — Imperial,
Fiscal and Educational — which will demand your considera-
tion with all the clamancy attaching to fiercely controversial
partizan politics. With the more earnestness do we
commend to your conscience the needs of those who have
few votes, little influence, and no partizan passion behind
them. Precisely because their claims are likely to be
crowded out or shouted down, do we make this appeal to
you in the name of our Most Sacred Religion and of the
Reverence for Age which its most solemn precepts enjoin.
J. Arthur Aldington, Wesleyan Minister.
E. T. Arkle, Shipley Vicarage.
John Bond, Vicar of Horsham.
Richard Bowcott, Warnham Vicarage.
R. C. Bull, Stedham Rectory.
George T. Carr, Amberley Vicarage.
C. Herbert Clapp, Baptist Church, Horsham.
J. King Cummin, Vicar of Easebourne.
B. J. Dewry, Rudgwick Vicarage.
Thomas D. Dodsworth, Primitive Methodist Minister.
Edward O. Edgell, Lodsworth Vicarage.
E. L. Elwes, Rector of Woolbeding and Archdeacon of
Chichester.
A MEMORABLE BYE-ELECTION 185
E. L. Garvock Houndle, Rector of Heyshott.
F. G. Hughes, Slinfold Rectory.
R. Alex. Johnson, Congregational Minister, Petworth.
Geo. Lansdowne, Unitarian Minister, Billingshurst.
T. E. de V. Laurence, Curate-in-Charge of Holy Trinity
Church, Horsham.
J. J. Marten, Unitarian Minister.
S. McArthur, Partridge Green.
James McAuslane, Baptist Minister, Crawley.
John Moses, Rector of Etchinfield.
H. Copley Moyle, Iping Rectory.
C. T. Plank (Congregational), Midhurst.
J. P. Podmore, The Vicarage, Cowfold.
A. J. Roberts, Vicar of Harting.
G. E. Rogers, Southwater Vicarage.
John Stanley, The Vicarage, Billingshurst.
Walter C. Talbot, Minister of Horsham Congrega-
tional Church.
J. E. Wallace, Roman Catholic Priest.
Herbert E. Ward, Dial Post, West Grinstead.
Arthur F. Young, Curate-in-Charge of St. Mark's,
Horsham.
F. Herbert Stead.
As will be seen, the appeal was signed by thirty-two The Parties
ministers of religion, including about a score of Anglicans ; out-generalled.
the Roman Catholic priest ; Baptist, Congregational,
Wesleyan, Primitive, and Unitarian ministers.
This manifesto saved the situation for the old folks.
Both candidates were compelled to make reply, and to reply
at length. Their replies were printed and sent to every
dignatory. The matter occupied many columns of the local
Press. The London newspapers gave great prominence to
the position which Pensions had taken in the election. The
Churches had out-generalled the Parties.
The replies of the candidates were comparatively
unimportant. Lord Tumour replied that on his estate all
who had been in the family service for a certain number of
years, when incapacitated through old age or illness, were
allowed a pension of not less than 5s. a week and a cottage
rent free. Pie would consent to a scheme by which persons
of either sex would contribute during their working years
a small sum yearly to the State, which, put out at compound
interest, would be returned to them in weekly allowances in
old age ; together with State aid to anyone who were unable,
186 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
through illness or misfortune, to provide for themselves.
Mr. Erskine had, of course, already declared himself.
Tactics that But the tact ics °f the Liberals were manifestly directed
failed. towards fighting the election chiefly on the issue between
Tariff Reform and Free Trade. Evidently this did not rouse
the enthusiasm of the agricultural labourers as it might have
been aroused by giving prominence to the promise of
pensions for all in their old age. The Liberals did not
succeed in capturing the seat.
The official Liberal policy of reticence on Pensions had
not merely been defeated by the intervention of the Churches ;
it had been punished at the polls. Politicians were taught
that the claims of the aged could no longer be trifled with.
CHAPTER XXXV
ON THE EVE OF THE NATIONAL VOTE
1905 was one long preparation for the electoral struggle
which was to decide our question. The official policy of the
two chief Parties in the State was, as we have seen, to
maintain complete silence concerning Pensions ; or, when
speech was extorted, to say nothing definite. The movement
advanced in both Parties, but entirely without official leader-
ship. We took every opportunity of permeating with our
ideas the rank and file that marched under the Liberal and the
Unionist banners. Opportunity, when not offered, we created.
Mr. Rogers availed himself of the courtesy of the Conserva-
tive Club Gazette to issue in the May number of that journal,
which circulates widely among Conservative bodies, " an
appeal to the Conservative Party," putting the case for
immediate Pensions legislation in a way that was in line with
Conservative history and that would appeal to the Conserva-
tive conscience. He made every use acceded to him by the
Liberal Press to stir up Liberal consciences.
The growing Labour Party became ever more and more
pronounced in the resolve to push Pensions to the front.
Early in the year Mr. Rogers's engagement in the service
of Constructive Temperance Reform came to an end, and
was not renewed. The whole of his time was needed for the
Pensions campaign ; and he gave it as before.
True to the tradition of our movement, which had found in
Trades Councils a most important engine of progressive
propaganda, Mr. Rogers issued to the Trades Councils of the
United Kingdom the following circular : —
" Fellow Trade Unionists, — The latest official utterances
upon the General Election seem to indicate that this event will
not — unless the unforeseen happens — take place until some
time in the year 1906. If this be so, there is a period of, let
us say, twelve months, in which to put pressure upon our
Government to bring forward a Bill for Old Age Pensions,
a measure of reform to which they are pledged up to the hilt,
187
"In season oat
of season."
" All things to
all men."
Appeal to
the Trades
Councils.
1 88 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
and bound by every principle of political honesty. Do not be
misled by the false parrot cry, invented by the enemies of this
reform — 'They can't afford it; they've got no money; it
won't come in our time.' The returns of His Majesty's
Commissioners of Inland Revenue show a steady increase in
the income of the nation ; and what happens in our time
depends entirely on the people of our time. They can have
Old Age Pensions now if they are determined to have them.
" The National Committee of Organized Labour for the
promotion of Old Age Pensions for all, ask each Trade
Unionist before whom this letter comes, to assist them in
their agitation on behalf of Pensions by writing to the
Member of Parliament for his constituency, and urging him,
in the strongest terms, to force this question to the front in
the House of Commons. If the member be a Liberal, he
must be reminded that some among the leaders of that Party,
and many among the rank and file, are earnest believers in
the principle of Pensions for the Aged. If he be a Con-
servative, he must be told that his Party is more deeply
pledged than any other Party in the State to the same prin-
ciple, and will stand eternally disgraced before the nation if
they do not carry their pledges out. If he be a Labour
Member, he should be told that as this is pre-eminently a
Labour question he should lose no opportunity by measure
or by resolution to keep the subject before the nation. And
all Parties alike must be told that this reform is based upon
the dictates of humanity, and stands, therefore, above the
considerations of Party.
" For the sake of the aged, who because they are old can
bring little political capital to any Party, we appeal to the
young, to the middle-aged, and to all who desire to see some
of the burden of poverty taken off our citizens in their
declining years, that they will by the simple and constitutional
methods that lie nearest their hands, force our Government
to carry out their ancient pledge to make better the condition
of our Aged Poor. — Frederick Rogers, Secretary of the
National Committee of Organised Labour."
The e oecta t Public meetings were not at first so numerous as before.
Aged. But there was an abundance of other signs that the public
mind was made up. A pathetic indication of the quickened
expectancy that prevailed was supplied by letters which came
pouring in from aged correspondents in parts of the land
most widely removed. The aged sempstress, who had
worked all her life but whose eyesight was now failing her,
wrote to ask what she was to do till Old Age Pensions came.
From three such letters Mr. Rogers has quoted the following
ON THE EVE OF THE NATIONAL VOTE 189
excerpts. Here is the life-story of an agricultural labourer : A farm
" I began life by working for a farmer in this neighbour- labourer.
hood at a penny a day, and work has been my lot ever since.
I do not complain of it ; indeed, I have had my happiest times
when so engaged. I never got more than 2s. 6d. a day :
most of my time I worked at from is. 6d. a day. I was
married in 1863. I have had, and reared without parish
relief, four children. They are all grown up and they are
good members of society. My wife is beside me in our
happy little home to this day. We live here, where we have
lived for 25 years. The rent I pay is £,b a year, and all is
straight up to this day. Now, after all these years we feel
the pressure of old age coming down upon us, and we fear
what may be ours soon to know : how soon v/e know not. It
seems so hard to have parish pay hanging over you. I have
always paid my way, and have even done the best I could to
help my poorer neighbours in their trials, and thus have tried
to do my best for my country and for all. I have the same
feeling and desire now but my strength fails me, and I am
conscious that the weakness of old age is upon me.
" Will you pardon me for thus writing to you? Believe
me that I am not seeking my own good alone. I plead for
thousands of my fellow men and women as well as ourselves.
I feel that simple justice calls mightily for Old Age Pensions
for the people of England."
" I am a poor widow of 68 years old, and have reared four A working
children, and am here alone. The guardians will not allow widow.
me relief, and tell me I am able to work. It is very hard and
I fear I shall be driven to the workhouse. I have heard of
one of your tracts on Old Age Pensions, and I do pray that
you will do all you can to get us this. I have worked ever
since I was eight years old and I cannot keep on much longer.
I do not like to ask my children to keep me, they are too
poor ; I do not like to beg, and steal I will not. And so I
pray you to get the Pensions Act through Parliament as soon
as you can."
" I am 69 years old, and have reared seven children, and Seven proofs
am living alone. At present I am depending on my children, ™ "thrift."
and they are all married and have large families, and it pains
me very much to rely on them for support as they are all
poor, and I am receiving what ought to go to bring up their
children; but they won't hear of me asking relief from the
guardians, as they think they will force me to go into the
workhouse. I pray that you may be able to help us."
And so on. And so on. Who were we that we should be
appealed to as gods with power to give or withhold what
190 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
was the plain right of these aged sufferers? Their cries only
spurred us on to leave no avenue of influence untried to wrest
the needed help from the hands that could grant it.
Appeal to the The paralysis which had fallen on the Government in con-
Kiag- sequence of the fiscal controversy and from other causes,
turned many eyes in the direction of the Royal initiative
which, when Parties fail, remains the resort of a disappointed
people. Mr. Rogers did a very bold thing. He appealed
right past Ministers to the King. The letter which follows
appeared in the Morning Post, was afterwards submitted to
His Majesty, and was duly acknowledged by the Secretary
of State. It is of value as a monument of the way in which
earnest men were beginning to despair of politicians. Mr.
Rogers is by nature and conviction incapable of Court
sycophancy ; yet this is what he felt impelled to write in the
fifth year of the twentieth century :—
" Sir, — Will you permit me through your columns to draw
the attention of politicians and the public to the condition of
our aged poor, and to remind the former of their numberless
promises to reform that condition by enacting that pensions
for the aged shall be substituted for poor relief? I am well
aware that to go into the political arena and to ask that those
who govern us shall find time to address themselves to a
simple act of justice is to be very much like the voice of one
crying in the wilderness. I know that aged men and women
who are tottering along the paths of poverty to the friendly
embraces of the grave can bring no political capital to any
Party, and that the only grounds on which an appeal to make
easier their few declining days can rest are those of justice
and humanity. And, knowing these things, I still urge,
with all the strenuousness in my power, the claims of the
poverty-stricken aged. The old facts remain facts still. The
last return of ' persons in receipt of relief ' moved for by Mr.
Burt, M.P., and ordered by the House of Commons to be
printed on the 28th of March, 1904, shows no improvement
of the condition of things revealed by a similar report made
ten years before, but, on the contrary, shows a slight change
for the worse. It has not ceased to be a fact that, of the men
and women of our nation over 65 years of age, nearly
two-thirds are in want, and we know the way to remedy the
evils we deplore.
" All political Parties alike have, in a greater or lesser
degree, placed themselves on the side of Old Age Pensions,
and the House of Commons has twice affirmed the principle
without a dissentient vote. The Conservative Party is
pledged up to the hilt to this reform and has always shown
ON THE EVE OE THE NATIONAL VOTE 191
itself sympathetic thereto, the majority of Liberals are in
agreement with it, and the Labour Members regard it as an
essential plank in their platform. We know what public
opinion is on the subject : it has been expressed in every
possible way. All the old bogies and stumbling-blocks are
cleared out of our path. Nobody even professes to believe
now that a pension of 5s. a week at 65 will destroy
any of the thrift instincts in young people of 21. The
idea of endowing the Friendly Societies is as dead as Queen
Anne. The last two reports of His Majesty's Commissioners
of Inland Revenue show no decrease in the national wealth,
and the possibility of Old Age Pensions is as entirely proved
as is the justice of them.
" And the great political machine goes grinding on, and
the result is 'Words, words, words.' 'We mark time in
this place, nothing more,' said a Member in the House of
Commons to me the other day, and he spoke true. If, then,
the Great Assembly fails us — and it is failing us for all prac-
tical purposes — where shall we look for the voice which shall
authoritatively declare the convictions of the nation? In
that power which before any other typifies the continuity of
our national life, and which stands above the petty strifes of
partizan politics — in the Monarchy itself. It is the glory of
the English Monarchy that it is the living embodiment of
those great constitutional principles which the nation holds
supreme. More than once during the last half-century,
acting strictly in accordance with constitutional precedent
and constitutional principles, it has been a peacemaker amid
the factions of politics, a power that has evolved order from
the chaos of political strife. The popularity of King Edward
VII. with every class of his subjects is the most assured fact
in English public life. The effort to make easier the closing
years of His Majesty's aged subjects is unlimited, and ever
has been with political Parties ; it is simply an effort for social
justice, upon which the majority have agreed. Mr. George
Barnes, Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers,
said recently : ' Old Age Pensions were discussed in the reign
of Edward VI. ; I hope we may see the discussion come to
fruition in the reign of our justly popular King Edward VII. '
Most heartily do I echo his words. From the failures and
broken promises of political partizans we turn to that other
power which, because it is based upon ancient and inviolable
principles which find their life in the life of the nation, can
exercise an influence as constitutional as it is far-reaching,
abiding and real. — Yours, etc., Frederick Rogers, Secre-
tary of the National Committee of Organized Labour."
192 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
At the Annual Meeting of our Committee on July 29th,
there were reported certain " sympathetic utterances of Mr.
Redmond to Mr. Crooks," which elicited from us a resolution
urging "that an endeavour be made to secure a working
alliance with the Irish Party for the purposes of Old Age
Pensions. "
Primate's Pro- Mindful of the impetus which our movement had received
nouncement. i n its early days from the emphatic pronouncement of
Archbishop Temple, Mr. Rogers obtained a private audience
of his successor, and later was honoured with the following
letter : —
" Lambeth Palace, August 1st.
" Dear Mr. Rogers, — I thank you for your last letter. I
have not, since I had the pleasure of seeing you, had a great
deal of time at my disposal for considering the papers which
you left with me. I have now, however, looked into them
with some care, and I bear in mind all that you have said.
Nor, indeed, was the subject a new one to me. I read a
great deal in connection with the matter when it was a subject
of active controversy a few years ago.
" I quite understand, however, that your object in coming
to me was to urge that I should set forward your appeal on
broad and general lines, especially from a Christian stand-
point. This would obviously be apart from mere questions
of politics, or even statesmanship, in the technical sense. No
competent observer can, I think, be satisfied that we have
yet solved aright the problem of how to deal with the aged
poor. I deeply regret the fact that the Royal Commission
appointed a few years ago to deal with the subject of Old
Age Pensions did not include in its number any minister of
religion, for such men, as has been abundantly shown, have
almost unique opportunities of observation and knowledge,
and many of them use such opportunities to the full.
" I wish God-speed with all my heart to every man who
is grappling with that difficult and perplexing task. I join
heartily in the appeal which is made in so many quarters in
favour of the courageous endeavour to reconsider such ques-
tions from the foundation in the right of Christian principle
and Christian sympathy.
"To that extent I am entirely with you; but general
appeals ought, if they are to be effective, to be accompanied
by detailed recommendations, and such recommendations
must emanate from those who are experts not only in
economic study but in administrative experience in national
affairs.
ON THE EVE OF THE NATIONAL VOTE 193
' When the time comes that we have before us a definite
scheme or even rival schemes promulgated under such
auspices as I have described, you will not, I am certain, find
that the bishops and clergy of the National Church are lacking
in an eager desire to set forward such wise and practical
action as may remedy the conditions in the life of some of
our aged poor, which are deplorable in themselves, and which
ought to be impossible in any country which had really
learned aright how to apply in common life the principles laid
down by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. — I am, Yours
very truly, Randall Cantuar."
This promise, as we shall see, was not fulfilled until the
Old Age Pensions Bill came before the House of Lords in
1908.
The nearest Nonconformist counterpart to the Anglican
Primate is the President of the National Council of the
Evangelical Free Churches. That office was held in 1908 by
my friend Dr. R. F. Horton, of Hampstead. At my request
he issued to all Free Church candidates for Parliament an
appeal practically identical with the manifesto which thirty-
two ministers of religion had signed in the Horsham bye-
election. To it, as to the Primate's letter, the widest publicity
was given : and the Press duly rubbed home the advice of
both religious leaders. When the Hampstead bye-election
took place in October, the views which had been expressed
on Pensions by Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishops Temple and
Davidson, and Dr. Horton were printed in leaflet form and
circulated amongst the electors.
The imminence of a General Election roused our local com-
mittees to renewed activity. The Birmingham Committee
was re-constituted in November, with Mr. Dalley as secretary
— the very embodiment of resolute and persistent purpose.
It promptly proceeded to heckle local candidates and to
prepare a manifesto.
Nor were the Friendly Societies left out from the general
rally for Pensions. The overtures of Mr. Chamberlain had
led, it will be remembered, to a variety of schemes being put
forward in several of the societies. But in the end they all
came to nothing. Now Mr. Rogers issued a circular letter
to all the Friendly Societies of the United Kingdom, asking
them to lay the following resolution before their members,
and, if it was carried, to send it to the Prime Minister and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer : —
" This society desires to enter its strongest protest at the
delay of the Government in dealing with the question of Old
Age Pensions. All parties in the State are agreed as to the
Appeal from
the Free
Church
President.
Rallying the
Friendly
Societies.
194 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
necessity of a better treatment of the aged than is given them
under the Poor Law, and this society regrets profoundly that
the promises given by politicians, and the pledges made to
the nation by the Government, still remain unfulfilled."
Mr. Rogers was able to report that it was carried by the
majority of Friendly Societies without a dissentient vote.
Mr. The Trades and Labour Council of Coventry approached
Chamberlain's through its secretary the one-time famous champion of
farewell. Pensions. Mr. Chamberlain's reply may be taken as his
farewell utterance on the subject : —
" Dear Sir, — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of October 20th. I have already publicly stated that
I do not propose to make the question of Old Age Pensions
a part of the programme of Tariff Reform.
" The latter will secure, among other things, additional
revenue ; but I have said that the disposal of this revenue
must be left for later consideration, when the working classes,
who, of course, constitute the majority of the electors, will
be able to make their wishes known as to the use to which
it shall be put. In answer to your second question, I have
also stated publicly on many occasions that I do not believe
universal Old Age Pensions to be either practicable or
desirable.
" To treat the thriftless, the drunkard, and the wastrel the
same as the industrious and provident working man seems to
me to be a great injustice to the latter. — Trusting the. your
Council will agree with me, I am, Yours faithfully, J.
Chamberlain.
" Mr. Hugh B. Farren, Trades and Labour Council,
Coventry. "
Mr. Rogers promptly availed himself of the opportunity
thus given him by making reply in the Daily News and the
Morning Post. In both he rejoiced that by disconnecting
Pensions from Tariff Reform Mr. Chamberlain had freed the
question from entanglement with Party politics. In both he
pointed out that the indiscriminate treatment of good and bad
alike of which Mr. Chamberlain complained was precisely the
fault of the present Poor Law, " and " (in the Daily News)
" it would be better economy, as assuredly it would be truer
Christianity, to run the risk of pensioning a few drones rather
than let the working bees die of hunger. We pension a great
crowd of aristocratic drones as it is, and no one, not even
Mr. Chamberlain, has any word of protest for that." In the
Morning Post Mr. Rogers very neatly said : " The point is
that he has affirmed, whether intentionally or not, that Old
Age Pensions is a reform of too great importance to be
ON THE EVE OF THE NATIONAL VOTE 195
connected with matters which as yet must be regarded as in
the domain of speculative rather than practical politics."
This final abdication by Mr. Chamberlain of all part or Unionist
lot in the Pensions movement marked the passing of the last chance gone.
chance of the Unionist Party being the first to legislate on the
subject. A month after the letter was published, Mr. Balfour
placed his resignation in the hands of the King, and on
December 5th Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman became
Prime Minister.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE GENERAL ELECTION, 1906
Our manifesto was all ready before the change of Govern-
ment took place. It was in the newspapers four days after
Mr. Balfour's resignation was announced. It was one of
the very first manifestoes to appear. It ran as follows : —
JUSTICE TO THE AGED. TO THE ELECTORS OF GREAT BRITAIN
AND IRELAND.
" At length the time has come. The claims of old age can
now be met. All parties in the State are agreed on the
need and justice of Pensions for the aged. The war in
South Africa blocked the way ; but that is over, and the
field is clear. The House of Commons has unanimously
and repeatedly declared for Old Age Pensions. So have
all the great assemblies of organized Labour. The nation,
as a whole, is of one mind in the matter.,
" The facts are well known. Government statistics show
that more than a million aged persons over the age of 65
are unprovided for. The machinery of the Poor Law has
broken down. Personal thrift is, in most cases, unequal to
the task. Charity is always precarious, often demoralizing,
wholly inadequate.
" Do not be misled by the parrot-cry that we cannot afford
Pensions. We can.
" Every Party in the State has its scheme for providing
new and ample sources of revenue. The wealth of the
nation steadily increases, and we can always afford to be
just.
" Electors, do your duty to your aged fellow citizens. Speak
for those who cannot speak for themselves. Vote on behalf
of those who through the indigence of age have lost their
votes. See to it that they do not suffer because they lack
the advertisement of controverted politics. Give your
suffrages only to the man who is pledged to vote for a
measure giving Pensions to all the aged. Champion the
196
THE GENERAL ELECTION, 1906
197
cause of those who, because they are old and poor, can
bring no political capital to any Party. For the worn-out
worker, man or woman, who has helped to build the fabric
of our national life, demand not charity, but justice."
A special meeting of our Executive Committee was held
on December 14th, just seven years and a day after Mr.
Charles Booth's first Conference, and in the same building.
The final touches were put on our arrangements for the
decisive battle. One personal vote it is a pleasure to record :
— " That this meeting tenders its hearty congratulations
to its honoured colleague and fellow-committeeman, Right
Hon. John Burns, M.P., on his appointment as President oi
the Local Government Board, wishes him all prosperity in
the new phase of his public career, and expresses its con-
fidence that amid his numerous duties he will remain in the
future, as in the past, the loyal champion of the aged poor."
The manifesto was issued as a leaflet, with our Bill printed
on the back. One hundred thousand copies were distri-
buted through all our centres, and by every other avenue
that sought or accepted supply. The combined circulation
of all the newspapers which published it would be an inter-
esting sum in journalistic arithmetic. There were besides,
50,000 copies of our other leaflets judiciously distributed
among the electorate. The Midland Committee and the West
of Scotland Committee each published a separate manifesto
of their own, flavoured to suit local palates, and secured for
both a wide dissemination through the Press. By being
almost the first in the field, our appeals obtained much more
complete and prominent insertion in the newspapers than was
procurable by later manifestoes.
Candidates of all parties were freely bombarded by Mr.
Rogers through the post ; and here again our early attack
won us answers which would have been impossible when the
fight was thickening. To the two hundred Free Church
candidates Mr. Rogers sent his inquiries, with copies of
Dr. Horton's " appeal " to them, and with our manifesto.
No fewer than 168 replied, an unusually large proportion in
so general an onset. Mr. Rogers describes the upshot of
the replies by saying, " Some were in opposition, some were
uncertain ; but from the majority of them came whole-
hearted support."
On January 12th, 1906, the long-expected battle was
joined ; the General Elections began. Into the general
significance of the seismic change which resulted it is not my
concern here to enter. It is enough to note the effect
"Loyal
champion of
the aged poor.'
How we
snowed
leaflets.
"FreeChorch"
candidates.
The political
overturn.
198 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Our six new
Members.
The portfolio
of Pensions.
on our movement. First of all, eleven members of our National
Committee were returned to the new House of Commons :
Mr. Burns, from Battersea ; Mr. Burt, from Morpeth ; Mr.
John Johnson, from Durham, came back as Labour Members
of the Liberal Party. So did Mr. Frederick Maddison, after
a " khaki " break, having this time vanquished Socialism
and Unionism at Burnley. Mr. Crooks re-entered from
Woolwich as Member of the self-dependent Labour Party.
Besides these five were six new altogether to the House,
and carried on the crest of the latest wave of democracy.
Our Chairman, Mr. G. N. Barnes was sent in by the Labour
vote of the Blackfriars division of Glasgow over the heads of
both Liberal and Unionist. Our Vice-Chairman, Mr. G. D.
Kelley, also a Labour man pure and simple, came in triumph
from South-West Manchester. Mr. Wilkie, the convenor of
our Committee for Northumberland and Durham, and the
first to propose our series of Conferences, was now Labour
Member for Dundee. Mr. J. R. Clynes, Chairman of our
first Manchester Conference, and since active member of our
Lancashire Committee, now sat as Labour Member for
North-East Manchester. Mr. A. H. Gill, also of our Lanca-
shire Committee, was returned for Bolton. From our York-
shire Committee came Mr. J. Parker, as Labour Member for
Halifax. Our M.P. 's thus covered a wide area of industrial
Britain. One (Mr. Burns) had become a Cabinet Minister.
One (Mr. Burt) a Privy Councillor. Four belonged to the
Liberal-Labour Group ; six were unhyphenated Labour men.
The return of these ten men made us perfectly sure that
whatever the composition of the new Parliament, the demand
of the National Committee would not fail for lack of doughty
champions. Our cause would no longer be suppliant or
apologetic : it would find vigorous and valiant advocacy from
the lips of our own chief officers. The Labour Party adopted
an excellent device for furthering its Parliamentary effective-
ness. It assigned to each of its members a special subject
of legislative concern. Mr. George Barnes was entrusted
with the portfolio of Old Age Pensions.
The new House consisted of 380 Liberals, 22 Liberal-
Labour men, 29 Labour men, 156 Unionists, and 83
Nationalists. This meant a Ministerial majority of 134 over
all other Parties combined ; and when joined by Labour and
Nationalist Parties, the total number arrayed against the
Unionist remnant of 156 was 514, a majority reaching the
enormous figure of 358. In a House so constituted, what
was the outlook for Pensions? Right through the electoral
struggle, the headquarters of both the old Parties had stood
THE GENERAL ELECTION, 1906 199
by their policy of official reticence in respect of Pensions.
There had been references, more or less vague, to prospects
of social reform : but of definite pledges to enact Pensions
there were none. The Unionist leaders made no pronounce-
ment on this question.
Neither did Liberal Ministers. The new Premier opened Mtwsters
the campaign with a speech of great length in Albert Hall: unpigj^j"
but gave no promise of Pensions. The election addresses
of Ministers were similarly innocent of definite response to
the claims of the aged.
This silence was not accidental : it was designed. For
Mr. Asquith himself, when introducing the Budget in 1908,
declared : " His Majesty's present Government came into
power and went through last General Election entirely
unpledged in regard to this matter." " Entirely unpledged"
— there we have avowed the official policy of the Liberal
Party. There we have the explanation of the muzzle put
upon the Liberal candidate in the Horsham bye-election,
and doubtless in every election where the Liberal Central
Association could speak with decisive authority.
The significance of this avowal must be carefully noted. Caution and
Mr Asquith explained that Ministers " felt it ri^ht to enter J, he ... ..
v «!• * *-i *u u a u a f 11 «■■ Constitution.
into no binding engagement until they had had full time
to survey the problem in all its aspects, and to lay a solid
financial foundation for any future structure it might be
possible to raise." This conscientious caution undoubtedly
commands our moral praise. It stands in gratifying contrast
to the irresponsible flippancy with which some politicians
had flung out scheme after scheme, and had carried none.
But there are other considerations based in the ethics of
public life which the attitude of the Government ignored.
According to the tradition of British politics, a General
Election is the one time when the people shall declare
its will. It is supposed to declare its will by giving a
majority to the Party which undertakes to carry into effect
the measures or principles on which the people has set its
heart. Thus the proper constitutional way for the people
to decree any great reform is to bestow the largest number
of votes on the Party which pledges itself to that reform.
The straightforward course, therefore, for a Party or
Government which intends or desires to introduce a great
reform is to give the people an opportunity of pronouncing
on the question at the polls. I say "great" reforms, for Ma u n 4 a l e ftot
minor reforms may be taken for granted as corollaries to the
larger measures on which the people is definitely consulted.
And Old Age Pensions are admitted on all hands to belong
200 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
British
Democracy no
beggar.
Four-fifths
pledged.
First
Government
pronounce-
ment.
to the category of exceptionally great questions. Any Party
or Government which goes to the polls deliberately resolved
to remain " entirely unpledged " on a matter of this magni-
tude evidently does not intend to consult the people on the
question : does not intend to give the people a chance of
expressing its mind in the traditional manner by choice of
Party : does not invite a popular mandate on the question :
nay, does not want a mandate on the question. No British
Government, least of all a Liberal Government, can assume
the pose of a benevolent Dictator, asking for a plebiscite of
blind confidence, keeping possibly in the back of his mind
some boons which he will bestow upon his subjects, " if they
are good," but which, until they have avowed their confi-
dence, he will on no account promise to confer. No : it is
the people which ought to decide what boons it will have, and
by what Party it will have them. If the British democracy
wants Old Age Pensions, it ought to have the opportunity of
selecting for their enactment a Party — not entirely unpledged
— but entirely pledged to enact them. Mr. Churchill's
remark, " The Liberal Party does not promise Pensions : it
gives them," was undoubtedly smart and effective; but it
is neither Liberal nor democratic. For by what right, or on
what principle can a Party " give " anything to the nation
unless first the nation has resolved to have it, and therefore
chooses the Party which most credibly " promises " to carry
out its will? The British people is not yet reduced to the
position of a suppliant for favours from the hand of Parties
who may " give " or refuse at their lordly pleasure.
Happily, as we shall see, the official theory altogether
broke down under the weight of popular determination.
Ministers might flatter themselves that they were " entirely
unpledged " : the rank and file of Members had a very
different tale to tell. When Mr. Asquith used the phrase
" entirely unpledged," a hum of amused surprise went round
the crowded Liberal Benches. Most of them, as it proved,
were pledged to the hilt. Had the Party as a whole been
as entirely unpledged as Ministers claimed to be, there
would be solid ground for believing that the Government had
no constitutional right to deal with the matter, the consti-
tuencies not having issued any mandate to that effect. But
so effective had been the pressure exerted on all Parties that
Mr. Hodge could say in Parliament that four-fifths of the
Members of that House had been pledged to Pensions.
Before Parliament met, and before Ministers who declined
to lead had found it expedient to follow, the Government was
given an opportunity of declaring itself on the question. A
THE GENERAL ELECTION, 1906 201
deputation from the Parliamentary Committee of the Trade
Union Congress waited on the Prime Minister and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer on February 15th, to submit a
number of schemes. Among the rest was a plea voiced by
Mr. W. J. Davis, of the National Brassworkers, for the
introduction of a universal system of Old Age Pensions, to
begin at 60, to be at least 5s. a week, and to be drawn from
the Imperial Treasury. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in
reply expressed his sympathy with every word Mr. Davis
had spoken. He agreed that a general and generous scheme
of Pensions would not discourage, but would promote thrift.
The question, where the money was to come from he turned
over to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mr. Asquith was equally sympathetic, but argued that it "No reasonable
was a question of ways and means ; not objects or ideas. cx P ecta " 011,
He went on to say, " For my part, as one who has control
of the finances of the country, I should not be dealing
honestly if I made anything in the nature, I will not say of
promise or assurance, or held out anything in the nature of
an expectancy, until I could see myself either in possession
of, or in reasonable hope of possessing some fund that would
be adequate to the purpose. For the moment I tell you
frankly I do not possess it, and I have no reasonable expec-
tation of possessing it. But there is a way, and only one
way, by which this and many other social reforms which
depend in the long run upon money, can be obtained. It
is by cutting down extravagances, by reducing the debt,
and by bringing the finances of the country into a healthier
and sounder condition. That is the first step I urge. That
is a step which I am sure the right hon. gentleman will
agree with me it is the most earnest desire and fixed inten-
tion of the present Government to take."
" I have no reasonable expectation of possessing it."
That was the first word concerning the wherewithal for
Pensions which came from the Liberal Chancellor of the
Exchequer two months after taking office. Happily, it was
not his last word.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE COMMONS UNANIMOUS FOR PENSIONS
A new type of
Parliament.
Australia
leading.
The new Parliament assembled on February 19th. It was
indeed a new Parliament. Not merely was the Party colour
entirely different, the social type was even more distinct.
When I first took tea at Spring Gardens in the old Progressive
days, the London County Council impressed me as very much
like a magnified deacons' meeting of the Nonconformist
variety. The same sort of impression was made by one's first
visit to the Parliament of 1906. Brilliance was not obtrusive.
Rhetoric was rather resented. The " clever man " was at a
discount. The prevailing tone was one of plain and
strenuous purpose. Lord Morley has described it as morally
the best Parliament he has seen. No doubt there was a
tameness about its goodness : there was more of the draught-
horse than of the mustang ; but perhaps for that reason it
was better fitted to pull the heavy legislative pantechnicon
along. In respect of social reform, the change of climate
from its predecessor was as from Greenland to Queensland.
Everywhere in the new House was felt the throb of intense
practical energy and of eager hopefulness. This was, of
course, the proper environment for our movement.
The Colonies have been throughout on this question the
pioneers and leaders of the Home Country. Barely had the
new Parliament gathered at Westminster when, as though to
remind us of the courageous initiative of the Colonies, out
came the Report of the Australian Commonwealth Com-
mission on Old Age Pensions. The Commission unanimously
rejected Mr. Chamberlain's proposals to utilise Friendly
Societies. It also rejected the German contributory scheme.
It proposed that " the Federal Government shall grant
pensions of 10s. weekly as a legal right, not as charity, to all
persons of 65 years who have resided continuously in the
Commonwealth for twenty-five years " and whose annual
income does not exceed ^25. In cases of permanent
incapacity, it would grant a pension at the age of 60. Early
202
THE COMMONS UNANIMOUS FOR PENSIONS 203
legislation on these lines was expected. But how slight the
problem was in Australia as compared with the problem at
home may be seen from the fact that the total annual cost of
this generous scheme for the whole island continent was
estimated at no more than ^1,500, 000. Nevertheless, the
precedent was stimulating.
The new temper prevalent at Westminster in respect of the Labour and
aged soon declared itself. There was no mention of Pensions in Capital allied.
the King's Speech. In the old days that would have occasioned
us much activity in the Lobbies, trying with uncertain results
to get someone to move an amendment to the Address
lamenting the absence of allusion to the rights of the aged ; or
if by the slightest delay that course were blocked, to induce
someone in the Debate on the Address to press home our
demand. Now, happily, the new Labour Members were in
the House, with many others equally in earnest with them on
the subject, equally earnest with them in demanding early
legislation. In 1906 an amendment was not moved. But
the Chairman of the National Committee, Mr. George Barnes,
to whom the subject of Pensions had been by his Party
specially allocated, seized an early opportunity in the course
of the debate on the Address to state his position and ours
and the purpose of the Labour Party in respect of Pensions.
He was followed up in his main contentions by one of the
chief capitalists of the country, Mr. W. H. Lever. The
conjunction of Labour and Capital in a demand for large
expenditure on the aged was a striking evidence of the
national unanimity.
The House of Commons had not been six weeks in session Our Resolution
before it devoted an evening to the subject. A resolution to the fore '
embodying the principle for which we had contended in
season, out of season, for seven long years, was brought
forward by the Labour Party on March 14th. It ran as
follows : " That in the opinion of this House a measure is
urgently needed in order that out of funds provided by taxa-
tion provision can be made for the payment of a Pension to
all aged subjects of His Majesty in the United Kingdom."
The phrasing was awkward, but the meaning was plain. A full House.
The prospect of the debate had aroused intense interest. It
was only " private members' night." It followed immediately
on an exciting Party struggle. But the House was full.
The Strangers' Gallery was crowded, and many would-be
spectators were turned away. By the kindness of Mr.
Frederick Maddison, M.P., I was given a seat behind the
bar on the floor of the House, where I was in closest touch
with the proceedings. I need not add that so far as my will
2o 4 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
could direct the effluent sympathy of the Soul of Society on
each speaker and on the House as a whole, the effort was
not wanting.
Mr.J.O'Grady. The resolution was moved by Mr. J. O'Grady, Labour
Member for East Leeds. He laid stress on the increasing
pace of industrial life, making it harder and harder for the
aged ; on the waste of national wealth in the workhouse
system ; on the ease with which Parliament could find money
for wars and preparations for wars ; and on the fact that
Britain was on this question behind all other nations in
Europe excepting Russia.
Mr. Grove. The motion was seconded by Mr. Grove, Liberal Member
for South Northamptonshire. He called withering attention
to there being only one Member on the front Opposition
Bench, and only seven in the benches behind him. Such
was Unionist interest in this great problem of Labour ! He
suggested a graduated income tax as the source of Pensions.
Mr. Asquith's Then arose the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who held in
sympathy. ^is hand the key to the situation. Remembering his
despondent forecast to the Trade Union deputation not four
weeks ago, I awaited his words with natural apprehension.
He began by declaring that the Government could offer no
opposition to the House accepting the resolution. That was
the first gain. He went further. He said of the principle
put forward in the resolution that there was not merely no
reluctance on the part of the Government to accept it, " but
there is the strongest and keenest possible desire by every
means we can find available and practicable to further the
"The two object the hon. gentleman has in view." He declared that
most tragic the two most tragic figures of to-day — the man who wants
figures." work and cannot find it, and the man who is past work and
has to beg for his bread and his bed — constitute a standing
reproach to our civilisation and a perpetual problem for
statesmen.
In thus selecting poverty arising from old age and poverty
arising from unemployment as the master-problems of modern
statesmanship, Mr. Asquith in effect readjusted the whole
political perspective. Would that he and his huge majority
had arranged their legislative programme accordingly, instead
of wasting sessions and losing prestige on measures not
concerned with these two supreme questions !
A new hope. The Chancellor of the Exchequer went on to discuss
the cost. He took ^13,000,000 as a modest estimate,
^26,000,000 as an outside estimate of the annual cost of a
national Pensions scheme. He pointed to retrenchment of
expenditure on the Army and Navy and Education as a
THE COMMONS UNANIMOUS FOR PENSIONS 205
necessary step towards attainment. He also looked to a
readjustment of the incidence of taxation to yield a larger
revenue. After this preamble, he took a stride ahead of what
he had said on the 18th of February to the Trade Unionists.
Then, it will be remembered, he had said of the fund to
provide Pensions, "I do not possess it, and I have no
reasonable expectation of possessing it." Now he said, " I
am not without hope. . . . The Government hope, not at
once, but gradually and I hope effectually, to make some
progress towards the solution of this problem." He went
on to recognise the presence of a driving power such as they A new
had never had before in the House of Commons. It was dnvI £8
obvious that this new force was the cause of Mr. Asquith's
new hope.
In the debate which followed, I was forcibly impressed
with a new and revolutionary fact. That was the profound
deference paid in all parts of the House to the Labour
Members. To see how right honourable gentlemen on both
sides of the House kow-towed to the Labour men, turned to
them for information, accepted their corrections, and stood
in awe of their criticisms, was most refreshing. Too often
it was the homage of conscious ignorance to expert know-
ledge. But there was more than that. There was a
tremulous foreboding that these Labour men, so few in
number, but so determined in purpose, had behind them
unmeasured potencies of electoral strength. It was good to
note the unctuous and comprehensive bow thus made by
upper and middle classes to the working classes, as these last
arrived at the seat of power.
Mr. Arnold Forster's speech was chiefly notable for the
disavowal it extracted from Mr. Asquith of any intention to
adopt a contributory scheme.
After the Chancellor's, the next most important speech Tribute to
was that of Mr. John Burns. As he put it, the Government Charles Booth.
had " accepted the resolution with the provision that means
should be found to attain the end." It was pleasant to have
an assurance from the President of the Local Government
Board that " in his judgment the best, simplest, and fairest
scheme was the universal scheme put forward by Mr. Charles
Booth, by which everybody was to receive a pension
irrespective of conditions or means." Verily the stone which
the builders had rejected was now the headstone of the corner.
In closing, Mr. Burns insisted that we " must bring to bear
upon the Government such sufficient, reasonable, disciplined
and well-organised pressure as would compel, or better still
persuade, them to begin some form of Old Age Pension."
zo6 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Unanimity The resolution, with its affirmation of the principle of
unbroken. pensions for all in old age, was carried without a division,
with only one solitary " No " against a thunder of " Ayes."
It was not only accepted by the overwhelming Liberal
majority. It was approved by the whole House. The
tradition of unanimity which so surprised everyone when
it was forming at the Labour Conferences at the different
industrial centres, but which had remained ever since prac-
tically unbroken, received a significant confirmation in the
House of Commons.
" You must be a proud man to-night, Mr. Stead," said my
companion behind the bar, a stalwart Scottish member of the
staff of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, as we rose to
leave the House.
" Grateful " would have been the truer word.
G.— CONVINCING THE CABINET
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CONFERENCE OF MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT
Both Cabinet and Commons were now committed to our From principle
general principles. But, alas ! any number of measures have, practice,
in the long history of Parliaments, been accepted " in
principle" by House and Government which have never taken
legislative form "in practice." It was necessary that no
time be lost in following up the unanimous resolution of the
Commons with the persistent pressure which Mr. Burns had
invited. I suggested that a number of Members of Parlia-
ment specially interested in Pensions should be invited to
meet without delay, and decide on the form of pressure to
be applied. The idea was at once approved. Mr. Rogers
had a busy time in maturing arrangements. On March 29th
a special meeting of our Executive Committee, held at the
House of Commons, resolved to issue the following circular : —
National Committee of Organized Labour for the
Promotion of Pensions for All in Old Age.
In view of the fact that on the 14th instant the Government
adopted and the House of Commons affirmed without a
division, the principle embodied in Mr. O'Grady's resolu-
tion, of Pensions for all in old age,
We invite you and other Members of the House of Commons
who have supported the demand formulated by the
National Committee of Organized Labour, for universal
Old Age Pensions
To a Conference in Committee Room No. 9 in the House of
Commons, on Wednesday, April 4th, at noon, which is
called to consider the policy now to be adopted and the
207
zo8 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
next steps to be taken to give legislative effect to the
resolution of the 14th instant.
Geo. N. Barnes.
Will Crooks.
Enoch Edwards.
Charles Fenwick.
J. Keir Hardie.
J. Ramsay MacDonald.
F. Maddison.
D. J. Shackleton.
W. C. Steadman.
John Ward.
Frederick Rogers,
Organizing Secretary, National Committee.
House of Commons,
March 29th, 1906.
A new
combination.
A peremptory
demand.
There accordingly assembled in Committee Room No. 9
the Right Hon. Thomas Burt in the chair, G. N. Barnes,
Will Crooks, Keir Hardie, Ramsay MacDonald, Frederick
Maddison, Chiozza Money, G. H. Roberts, Stephen Walsh,
John Ward, E. L. Wardle, A. Wilkie, L. W. Wilson, P. W.
Wilson, W. J. Wilson, Mr. Rogers, and I. There was not
a little significance about this group. It was the first time
in the new Parliament that representatives of the two wings
of Labour had united with advanced Liberals ; and they had
united under the auspices of our National Committee. I was
not a little apprehensive of the terms on which they would
meet. Feeling had run very high during the elections, and
there had been no small antagonism between the two Labour
groups. But, as in the country, so in the House, Pensions
exercised a synthetic power, and drew men to common action
irrespective of Party. In the conversation which preceded
definite resolutions, I urged that we should press for a
Pensions Act next year. Mr. Burt, in his fatherly way,
smiled at what he considered my youthful impetuosity, and
agreed, also with a smile, that " there would be no harm in
asking for it." The temper of the meeting was as peremp-
tory as I had been, and eventually, on the motion of Stephen
Walsh, seconded by Alexander Wilkie, the unanimous resolve
was carried " that we demand an Old Age Pensions Act from
the Government next session." There was some discussion
as to linking Pensions with certain proposals of taxation,
but in the end we decided to adhere to our hitherto uniform
CONFERENCE OF MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT 209
policy of refusing to identify Pensions with the odium or
controversy sure to attach to any particular tax. Next we
agreed, on the proposal of Frederick Maddison, seconded
by Ramsay MacDonald, that an effort be made to obtain a
private interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Finally we appointed a committee consisting of Mr. Burt,
Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Chiozza Money to arrange for bringing
the views of the Conference before the Chancellor. The
three Progressive groups in the House being represented in
this trio, we felt that we could leave to them to run our
quarry down. The tradition of unanimity was still intact. Unanimous.
CHAPTER XXXIX
VOICES OF ORGANIZED RELIGION
The Bishop of
Wakefield.
"An inspiring
week-end."
The Congrega-
tional Union
again.
While the Commons was active, the country was by no
means idle. On the 5th of May a great Conference was held
at Wakefield. It was convened by the Yorkshire Federation
of Trades Councils. There were present 66 representatives
of 36 Co-operative Societies, and 280 of 154 Trade Societies.
In all 376,800 members were represented. The Bishop of
Wakefield presided, and, though acknowledging a sense of
the difficulties in the way, spoke out bravely. Only the
Labour movement, he said, could drive home to the com-
munity the deplorable facts of Age and Poverty. Any
equitable scheme of Pensions for the aged poor was
essentially Christian in its idea, and ought to receive the
support of all Christian people. He called on his brother
clergy and ministers and all the favourably circumstanced
to investigate the problem of poverty, and to support the
advocates of Old Age Pensions. Mr. Keir Hardie, who
confessed in the Labour Leader that he found this " an
inspiring week-end," said he was too old to be satisfied with
pious opinions such as Parliament had emitted so often on
Old Age Pensions. He wanted Acts. Mr. Rogers spoke
with his usual eloquence, and scouted the suggestion of any
contributory scheme. A resolution calling on the Govern-
ment to enact without delay a national system of Old Age
Pensions, and insisting that such legislation should precede
any important reduction of taxation, was carried unanimously.
The voice of Yorkshire Labour was uttered with emphasis
and without ambiguity. And Yorkshire religion had found
a fitting mouthpiece in the Bishop of Wakefield.
The Congregational Union of England and Wales
represents a great and influential section of British religion.
It is also viewed with especial favour by the Liberal Party,
who regard it more or less as an invaluable wing, per-
manently mobilized in pulpit and pew, of the Liberal army.
To elicit an official expression of Congregational opinion
210
VOICES OF ORGANIZED RELIGION 211
would, on both grounds, form an effective addition to the
pressure we were bringing to bear on the Government. I
was therefore glad to obtain the readily-given consent of
the reference committee of the Union to a resolution being
brought forward before the May Assembly, and I was
fortunate in securing Mr. W. H. Lever, M.P., to move, and
Mr. Halley Stewart, M.P., to second this resolution: —
"That, in view of the election pledges of Members of
Parliament, this Assembly urges upon His Majesty's
Government to give legislative effect in the next session of
Parliament to the resolution which the House of Commons
has this year passed without a division, demanding Pensions
for His Majesty's aged subjects."
In speeches of great cogency and vigour the motion was Unanimity.
urged upon the Assembly which filled the City Temple on
May 10th, and, according to the official circular of the
Secretary, was carried unanimously. The newspapers
reported "only a single hand held up in the negative."
Possibly this single hand belonged to a person not entitled
to vote. Congregationalism South of the Border was
pledged to our demand.
Sunday evening, May 13th, saw a great concourse of
workers assembled in Derby market place, to demand with
impressive unanimity the immediate enactment of universal
Old Age Pensions. The chairman, Mr. T. Ogden, J. P.,
declared that the meeting was fitly held on the Sabbath day, "Essentially
since the effort to secure Pensions for the aged was an Christian."
essentially Christian work. Mr. George Barnes, M.P., in
a forcible speech mentioned that already 171,323. people were
drawing in Pensions from the Imperial Exchequer as much
as ^7,903,000. Mr. Richard Bell, M.P., urged that similar
demonstrations of public opinion should be held in every
centre of population, to force legislation on Parliament.
So in this merry month of May did the forces of organized
Labour and organized religion mobilize again as at the first,
and join hands to impose their peremptory mandate on
Premier and Party and Parliament.
CHAPTER XL
IN COMMITTEE ROOM NO. 14
" Dead-slow " Impelled by the importunity of the popular demand, which
ta Parliament. on ever y gj^g was growing in urgency, we could not but feel
impatient with the slow progress made inside of Parliament.
The deputation of three had been appointed on April 4th to
wait upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But April
passed, and the Chancellor and deputation had not met.
May passed — also without an interview. Mr. Rogers and I,
in frequent visits to the House, kept the three duly reminded
and informed of the expectancy of the country. The session
seemed to be slipping away without our having lodged the
needful representation in the ear of the Government. At
last, in June, the long-desired interview came off. We were
able to issue the following circular to the most sympathetic
Members of the House : —
National Committee of Organized Labour for the
Promotion of Pensions for All in Old Age.
" On Wednesday, April 4th, you were invited to be present
at a Conference of Members of the House of Commons to
consider policy as regards Old Age Pensions, the circular
of invitation being signed by the following gentlemen,
Members of that House : —
George N. Barnes.
Will Crooks.
Enoch Edwards.
Charles Fenwick.
J. Keir Hardie.
J. Ramsay MacDonald.
F. Maddison.
D. J. Shackleton.
W. C. Steadman.
John Ward.
" At that meeting the Right Hon. Thomas Burt, M.P. ,
Mr. George N. Barnes, M.P., and Mr. L. G. Chiozza
212
IN COMMITTEE-ROOM NO. 14
213
Money, M.P., were appointed to wait on the Chancellor of
the Exchequer.
" I have the honour to ask you to a meeting at a Committee
Room of the House of Commons, on Thursday, June 21st,
at 8 o'clock. The Committee Room will probably be
Committee Room No. 9, but you will receive a further notice
as to the number of the room before Thursday. As this
meeting is of the greatest importance my committee have
desired me to express the hope that you will be able to attend.
Frederick Rogers."
Browning Hall,
June 15th, 1906.
in
With much eagerness, therefore, twenty of us gathered A resolute
Committee Room No. 14. There were six Liberals twcnt y>
present, W. T. Wilson, Chiozza Money, W. H. Lever,
E. W. Davies, Stopford Brookes, P. Alden. The Liberal
Labour group was represented by four, Right Hon. Thomas
Burt, who occupied the chair, F. Maddison, W. Steadman,
John Ward. Of the Labour Party eight were there, G. N.
Barnes, W. Crooks, A. H. Gill, T. R. Glover, W. Hudson,
G. D. Kelley, J. Parker, G. Wardle. Mr. Rogers and
I were the only persons present who were not Members of
Parliament.
Mr. Burt gave a full account of the interview which the
Mr. Asquith
reported
three had had with Mr. Asquith. It was not through any
unwillingness to meet with the deputation, but solely owing
to the pressure of his official duties that he had not been able
to meet them sooner. Mr. Asquith, reported Mr. Burt, was
entirely sympathetic, and agreed with the ideas which the
three had expressed. But the sum needed was large. He
could not make any immediate pronouncement. He preferred
to wait the result of investigations now being made by a
Select Committee into the graduation of the Income Tax,
before giving a definite statement as to whether he was
prepared to consider the question in his next Budget.
Mr. George Barnes followed. He endorsed the report "entirely
already given by Mr. Burt. He, too, had found Mr. Asquith sympathetic."
" entirely sympathetic."
The opinion expressed by the Chancellor was that Old Age
Pensions formed one of the most urgent of public questions.
Mr. Asquith suggested that the sum needed for its realization
would be ;£i 5,000,000.
214 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Cost. This estimate, it will be seen, might at first seem to qualify
the " entire sympathy " with the aims of our committee
which was reported to the Chancellor. A pension of 5s. a
week for all at or over 65 years of age would involve a
possible expenditure of ^26,000,000. But it must be
remembered that Mr. Asquith was considering what was
practicable within the limits of next year's Budget. And
fifteen millions sterling would certainly meet the case of
most of the aged who were in need.
Mr. Chiozza Money, with eye as ever on the finance of this
and any question, expressed the opinion that the report of
the Income Tax Committee to which Mr. Asquith had alluded
was bound to be favourable. From close attention to the
evidence brought before that committee, he believed that a
much larger amount of taxable income would be discovered
than was at present supposed to exist.
The report was unanimously received and felt to be
reassuring.
The pure and The next step to be taken was the subject of a long and
simple policy, vigorous discussion. The proposals which we had so often
encountered in the country now reappeared in Parliament :
that under the plea of suggesting " where the money's to
come from," the project of Pensions should be linked up with
the imposition of certain taxes. To eager financial reformers
Pensions seemed to offer the very impetus required for the
advance of their cherished reforms. But again we pointed
out the peril of identifying Pensions with any particular
scheme of taxation, whether a super-tax on large incomes,
or a tax on land, or a tariff on imported manufactures. As
to enactment of Pensions there was unanimity. But as to
the adoption of any fiscal expedient there was bound to be
controversy. We wanted the national unanimity to be first
safely embodied in legislation. Then it was for the nation's
financial officers to devise the best ways and means of
raising the required revenue. It was evidently a sore dis-
appointment to one or two of the most ardent legislators to
find that they could not get for their schemes of a revised
national finance a lift upon the Pensions cart. But the
Conference stood firm to keeping Pensions free from
entangling alliances with projects of taxation, however
seductive.
Wanted, a The next step of a positive kind remained to be decided,
isp ay The logic of the situation was plain. We had, it was evident,
convinced the Government that both country and Commons
desired the measure. We had still to convince the Govern-
ment that that desire had reached a pitch of intensity that
IN COMMITTEE-ROOM NO. 14 215
would brook of no serious legislative delay. We had, in
short, to make Ministers feel that Members of Parliament
were not content with passing unanimous votes in the House,
but were resolved on putting the matter through. There
was needed a demonstration in force of the will of the House.
So it was finally decided that the Prime Minister and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer should be asked to receive a
large deputation of Members of the House of Commons at
the beginning of the Autumn Session.
At the same time, to stoke the fires of purpose in Members "Next year.'
and Ministers, we decided that if the money could be
obtained a vigorous agitation should be carried on through-
out the coming winter. Every meeting should enforce the
demand for Pensions in next year's Budget.
It was agreed that the sub-committee of three should
become four by the addition of Mr. F. Maddison.
We parted, glad that we were as unanimous as ever, sure
of progress already made, and confident of rapidly approaching
success.
Next Sunday morning I had a vivid confirmation of the What held
intense popular interest felt in securing justice to the aged. Walworth
We went out to hold our usual open-air meeting in East crow '
Street, Walworth. It was seven-and-a-half years ago since
we had all unconsciously begun the agitation on this very
spot, with the bugle blast of news from New Zealand.
Then it was November ; this time it was Midsummer. The
heat was grilling. The sun simply blazed down on the
crowded market. To stand in the heat and the dust was no
small ordeal. As it happened, the expected speakers did not
arrive. I had to do all the speaking myself. I told the
people of the way Pensions were moving forward : reported
to them the proceedings in Committee Room No. 14, with
the repeated assurances of the " entire sympathy " of the
Government. And in spite of the glare and the glow and the
noise, the men gathered and stood round by me, hundreds
upon hundreds. Anyone knowing the shifting nature of a
London crowd will understand what that means. And I
went on to tell them of the movement for Old Age Homes
which was already advancing on the heels of Old Age
Pensions. I described Miss Faraday's gift of the Michael
Faraday Home, her further gift of ^"1,000 founding the
Browning Bethany Homes for Old Folks, and Mr. Newberry's
gift of the beautiful site in the wooded Whyteleafe valley.
Still the men stood in their solid hundreds under the burning
sky. And I pictured the good time coming when Pensions
and Homes would make old age a glorious sunset to human
216 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
life, with something of the glow that told of a diviner home
beyond. Seeing the crowd never wavered, I told it of the
religious motives of our movement, and drove home the
obvious moral. For a solid hour my one voice had spoken
on these problems and prospects of Old Age : and for the
whole of that time the crowd in its hundreds stood absorbed.
In sight of The seventh annual meeting of the National Committee,
the end. held one month later, was naturally jubilant. It passed
resolutions congratulating all friends of Pensions on the
remarkable progress of the movement during the year, and
supporting in advance a winter agitation.
CHAPTER XLI
PREMIER AND CHANCELLOR AND THE
FOURFOLD TEST
A dynamic
demonstration.
A very vigorous indication of the national purpose was Yorkshire
given at Rotherham on the ist of September (1906). resolute.
Industrial Yorkshire, which at the first Conference in 1899
had declared itself after many qualms and questionings in
favour of our demand, grew more resolute and insistent as
the years passed. Even the General Election in the
beginning of 1906 did not satisfy it. It reinforced its
mandate by the great demonstration at Wakefield in May,
of which account has been given. It returned to the charge
in September.
The Rotherham Trades Council had the honour of eliciting
this fresh expression of Yorkshire opinion. At the Council's
invitation there assembled in the Town Hall Assembly
Rooms a most representative and decided Conference.
There were 184 Trade Union delegates representing 11,180
members, 135 Friendly Society delegates representing
23,832 members, 88 Trades Council delegates representing
12,200 affiliated members. Altogether 407 delegates
representing 47,202. Railway, Co-operative and Women's
Guilds were also represented.
The main speeches were delivered by Mr. G. N. Barnes,
M.P., and Mr. Rogers. They cleared away in advance
whatever objections or difficulty had survived in the minds
of delegates from previous Conferences. The discussion was
entirely sympathetic. And the resolution in favour of the
immediate enactment of a national system of Pensions was
carried with entire and impressive unanimity. The dynamic
import of this demonstration was duly conveyed to the
Government, and the proceedings were widely reported.
Two days after the Rotherham Conference the Trade Trade Union
Union Congress, assembled at Liverpool, passed unanimously Congress
a fresh affirmation of the principle for which we had waged
1906.
217
2i8 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
At the Ley si an
Mission.
Deputation
arranged.
A concert of
prayer :
at Cambridge
an eight-years' campaign. It also " instructed the Parlia-
mentary Committee to circularize all Unions affiliated, urging
them to bring pressure upon Members of Parliament
through their local branches, and to use every other effort
to ensure the passing of an Old Age Pensions Bill next
year." The resolution was moved by Mr. George Barnes,
M.P., and seconded by Mr. Pete Curran, M.P. It is easy
to infer the amount of popular agitation, extending all over
the country, which was thus generated.
The Labour movement in politics and economics was
busily engaged in furthering the cause of the aged. The
Labour movement in religion, operating through the
Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Meeting, had given second birth
to the movement, and continued active in its support. One
of the biggest and busiest, as well as one of the most
centrally situate, of these Men's Meetings was at the
Wesleyan Leysian Mission, Clerkenwell. There in the
month of October Mr. Rogers delivered an eloquent vindica-
tion of our position ; and the Mission published a verbatim
report of his speech in a penny pamphlet entitled "A Plea
for Old Age Pensions." When a movement which is
conquering Parliament and bending Ministers to its will
finds itself voiced in a Wesleyan Mission tract, there can be
little doubt left anywhere of its being essentially religious
and impartially national.
When the Autumn Session of Parliament assembled, our
Committee of Four lost no time in pressing upon the Govern-
ment the request formulated in Committee Room No. 14,
that a deputation of Members be received on the question of
Pensions. At last they secured a promise that the Prime
Minister would receive a deputation on November 20th. On
that meeting, accordingly, all our efforts were concentrated.
Whatever will-force we could exercise or enlist, by means
visible or invisible, by personal persuasion or electoral
pressure, by radiation of influence telepathic or supplicatory,
was trained on the persons expected to participate in that
memorable appointment.
On the nth of November I happened to be at Cambridge
on business with the University Free Church Union, and was
invited to address the Men's Brotherhood held in the Baptist
Church. The gathering was almost entirely composed of
working men, with a very few 'Varsity men present. I spoke
on the Pensions movement, its wonderful unanimities and its
approaching triumph. I laid special stress on the part which
prayer had taken in the movement, reiterating the convic-
tion that it owed more to the Power evoked by prayer than
PREMIER, CHANCELLOR, FOURFOLD TEST 219
to any other agency. I invited the direct co-operation of
my hearers, both on the mundane and on the higher planes
of action, and they most cordially responded. They promised
each to send a postcard to their representative in Parliament,
pressing him to support the deputation of Tuesday week.
What was of vastly greater importance, they pledged them-
selves to pray that the occasion might be signally used of
God to advance His purpose for the aged. The earnest
prayers of these men I knew were of more dynamic value
than any merely political demonstration.
At Browning Hall on the following Sunday repeated
requests were made for the concentration of prayer on the
opportunity presented by Tuesday evening's deputation.
The Fellowship of Followers met on the Sunday evening.
Followers were reminded of the wonderful answers which
had been granted to their prayers in earlier stages of the
movement, and were urged to focus all their powers of
intercession on the meeting which might effect so much.
Surrounded and pervaded by this prayerful expectancy,
we went up to Westminster on the 20th of November. The
interview was to take place in the Prime Minister's room.
The deputation was, strictly speaking, to consist exclusively
of Members of Parliament. The etiquette of the House is,
we understood, very exacting in this respect. The meeting
was, moreover, to be private. Reporters were not to be
admitted. The chances seemed faint that either Mr. Rogers
or I should be admitted. Naturally we wanted to be
present. So much depended on what would be said that we
felt we ought to be there. Furthermore, the deputation had
been arranged by the committee-room meetings which we
had convened and at which we had actively assisted. A
much deeper reason weighed with me. I did not doubt
that there would be present those who would anticipate and
follow every step in the proceedings with prayer. But I had
asked so many friends far and near to join with me in prayer
that night : I knew that their prayers would be linked with
mine in such close personal sympathy : I felt myself in a
sense at once the accumulator and the conductor of their
supplicatory force : that, putting aside all mere personal
desire, I seemed to be needed in the gathering. Happily,
the way was opened. As the Members went trooping into
the room, Mr. Thomas Burt, who shepherded and introduced
the deputation, waived the Parliamentary scruple and invited
us to enter. We passed in promptly.
The deputation was, we were informed, unusually large.
It numbered between seventy and eighty. When Mr. Burt,
and in
Walworth.
The
momentous
interview.
A number
needing no
apology.
22o HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
Mr. T. Burt.
The employer's
point of view.
Soul-
innervation.
in his introductory speech, said he had been instructed to
apologise for the shortness of the notice, for, had Members
received longer notice, their numbers would have been
appreciably greater, a general laugh broke out ! And Mr.
Burt hastened to say he thought perhaps after all they were
numerous enough to convey the evident feeling of the House.
So far as we could see, there were no Unionist or Irish
Members present. The gathering consisted entirely of Liberals
and Labour men.
Mr. Burt, in opening the case, went back, with the sure
instinct of the statesman trained to measure public forces, to
the series of Conferences in 1898-9 which had inaugurated
the present movement. He referred in just and generous
terms to the leadership of Mr. Charles Booth in these
Conferences, and declared that Mr. Booth's principles had
been accepted by every form of organized Labour throughout
the length and breadth of the land. Mr. Burt went on to
enforce the reasonableness of universal Pensions and the
need for early legislation. He adduced the hardening condi-
tions and the increasing pace of modern industry, as
additional reason for saving the aged from a strain beyond
their powers. Mr. G. N. Barnes followed with a similar
plea for urgency.
Mr. Theodore Taylor, of Batley, one of the impassioned
Christian enthusiasts of the House, a strong advocate of
profit-sharing and a great believer in the P.S.A. movement,
one of the men whose friendship I had prized long before I
went down into Walworth, spoke from the Liberal and
employer's point of view. He said that all employers,
including the best of them, were now agreed that provision
for the aged was beyond the power of any employer or any
voluntary association : it must devolve upon the State.
The views of the Trade Union group (better known as the
Liberal Labour men) were voiced by Mr. Enoch Edwards.
The position both of workman and employer having been
stated with much force and fire, and supported by vigorous
demonstrations of approval from the rest of the deputation,
the Prime Minister rose to make reply.
I was standing by a pillar in the crowd. I need hardly
say that every speaker had been backed up by the whole of
me in prayer that the right argument and the right word
and the right tone of feeling might be given. But when the
policy of the Government came to be enunciated, the soul
was focussed with an intenser importunacy on each of the
two speakers. On each the will was projected with all its
own force and with the force of all the wills behind it, far
PREMIER, CHANCELLOR, FOURFOLD TEST 221
away or near, and, what was far more, with the conscious
reinforcement of the Will Supreme. The answer corresponded
marvellously with the prayer.
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was more than usually The Premier
sympathetic and complaisant. He said that he entirely acquiescent
agreed with everything that had been said on behalf of the
deputation. He was only prevented from at once acceding
to our request by two things — want of time and want of
money. He accepted the position of our spokesmen — that
the only satisfactory method of dealing with the question
was by a universal plan. A Pension should be paid to every
aged person who applied for it — with certain well-understood
exceptions. He was against contributory schemes, because
they involved inquisitorial machinery altogether inconsistent
with the best traditions of the country and the thought of
its people. Far from a pension sapping independence, or
undermining thrift, it would do the precise opposite. It True thrift.
would give a sense of security and strength to a man through
life to know that at all events some provision was assured
against the day of feebleness. His conviction was that any
scheme must be universal in its application : and it must be
supplied by the State which alone had the money required.
He concluded by assuring us that the matter would be dealt
with as soon as time and money permitted.
Then the Chancellor of the Exchequer arose. We felt The passion of
that he held the key to the situation. It was in his power to Mr# As< I ulth «
open or shut the door of hope. On him all our thought and
purpose were fixed in a passion of concentration. Mr.
Asquith began by endorsing all that his chief had said.
He did much more. He surprised his best friends by the
warmth, nay, the only half suppressed passion with which
he spoke. I heard afterwards that his emotion was regarded
as the most striking feature of the whole evening. As one
of the fathers of the House said to me, with a touch of
sardonic humour in his tone, " No one would accuse Mr.
Asquith of emotionalism." But on the question of the aged
Mr. Asquith spoke with a glow of feeling which was said
never to have shone from him before. I caught his glance
as he said that no Chancellor of the Exchequer with funds
available — no man that had the means — would ever be so
lacking in the rudiments of humanity as to refuse to come
to the help of helpless age. And at the back of his eye I
saw the red fire. It was a glare of purpose that meant woe \ glimpse
to the man who dared to block his path, and wrath to the within.
man who dared to doubt his motive. Twice I have seen that
red fire behind the eye, and each time it has suggested a
222 HOW OLD AGE PENSIONS BEGAN TO BE
whole volcano of hidden passion, which, when the seismic
moment came, would shake the world. Nothing, he went
on to say, lay nearer his heart than that he should be able
to submit to the House of Commons a financial plan to
provide for the veterans of industry. Like the Prime
Minister, he was in favour of a universal plan. It must,
moreover, be a plan entirely dissociated from the Poor Law,
either in its present form, or in any form that it might assume
in the future. In closing, he declared the Government
regarded the question as one of extreme urgency.
Fourfold Here indeed was victory.
triumph. Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer had both
endorsed in the most emphatic and unequivocal manner the
four main principles for which we of the National Com-
mittee had been contending for more than seven years. They
had declared : —
i. Pensions must be universal, not partial.
2. Pensions must not be on a contributory basis.
3. Pensions must be kept apart from the Poor Law,
reformed or unreformed.
4. Pensions are a matter of extreme urgency.
These were the principles for upholding which we had been
derided as Utopian and visionary. These were the principles
against which " practical politicians " had patronized us
with advice less acceptable than open derision. And now
they were openly adopted by the official and responsible
leaders of the largest majority seen in Parliament for two
generations !
"Extreme It was with no perfunctory gratitude that Mr. Burt
urgency." thanked Ministers for the reception we had experienced. We
should, of course, have been better pleased if the Government
had definitely promised to introduce an Old Age Pensions
Bill in the next Session of Parliament. But " extreme
urgency " backed by an invincible majority in the Commons
must mean early legislation or nothing.
The official report of the interview was drawn up by Mr.
George Barnes, submitted to the Premier, and approved.
It was then given widest currency in the Press. After
satisfying the newspapers with our views of the result, Mr.
Rogers and I went home happy and thankful.
An exact ^ was exactly eight years before, on the 20th of November,
anniversary. 1898, that the Hon. W. P. Reeves had delivered his
memorable speech in Browning Hall, and by expounding
the Old Age Pensions Act of New Zealand had set agoing
PREMIER, CHANCELLOR, FOURFOLD TEST 223
the movement which had now won the complete endorse-
ment of the British Government. It was another of those
strange coincidences in which our work abounds.
Many were the messages of thanks sent round to friends
who had joined the forces of their wills with ours in prayer.
To the Cambridge Men's Brotherhood a special letter of
thanks was sent.
H.— HOPE DEFERRED AND LABOUR
DEFIANT
CHAPTER XLII
TOO MUCH FAITH IN MINISTERIAL MAN
Agitation at
full blast.
Three towns'
Conference.
Grounds for
legislating
at once.
The expressions of national opinion now multiplied so
rapidly on every side as to make it no longer possible to keep
count of them. After the pronounced utterances of Prime
Minister and Chancellor of Exchequer, even official Liberals
felt they might speak freely in support of Pensions ; and
the rank and file naturally grew more exuberant. Through
all the channels of associated industry, the Parliamentary
Committee of the Trade Union Congress was sending a tide
of vigorous demonstration. And the Labour Members, always
vocal on the subject, as soon as the passi 
