Pensions

Without a hitch, perfectly smoothly, punctual to the minute, regular as clockwork, nearly 600,000 aged persons are being paid their pensions every week. That is a wonderful and beneficent achievement, a good job well worth some risk and sweat to finish. Nearly eight millions of money are being sent circulating through unusual channels, long frozen by poverty, circulating in the homes of the poor, flowing through the little shops which cater for their needs, cementing again family unions which harsh fate was tearing asunder, uniting the wife to the husband, and the parent to the children.

1909, 30 January, Nottingham.

(Liberalism, 232.)

There is no inconsistency or contradiction between a non-contributory system of Old Age Pensions and a contributory system of insurance against unemployment, sickness, invalidity, and widowhood. The circumstances and conditions are entirely different. The prospect of attaining extreme old age, of living beyond threescore years and ten, which is the allotted span of human life, seems so doubtful and remote to the ordinary man, when in the full strength of manhood, that it has been found in practice almost impossible to secure from any very great number of people the regular sacrifices which are necessary to guard against old age.

1909, 23 May. Free Trade Hall, Manchester.

(Liberalism, 266.)

Everyone knows that he has a prospect of getting five shillings a week when he reaches that age. It is not much, unless you have not got it.

1911, 25 May.

I have always understood that the theory upon which a pension is granted is that it has been earned, and is to be regarded as deferred pay.

1913, 9 April.