Hill. — National Pensions. 697 



cases have come under my notice as occurring in this district. 

 In one case the master had to resign his appointment in con- 

 sequence of loss of eyesight, and he is now a poor old man 

 subsisting on the charity of friends. In the second case the 

 master had a serious complaint, which really incapacitated 

 him as a teacher, but his circumstances were such that he 

 was forced to continue to remain in charge of a school until 

 the ground almost closed over him. These men possessed 

 satisfactory qualifications ; they had spent their lives as 

 teachers in the service of their country, and their moral 

 "jharacters were of the highest and best. Is it not possible 

 for something to be done to help such a class of deserving men 

 in time of need ? Some years ago the question of a teachers' 

 superannuation fund was mooted, and this, I imagine, would 

 have been carried into effect had not circumstances necessi- 

 tated the expenditure of the accrued school fund for school- 

 buildings. To me there appears little difficulty in the way of 

 establishing some such fund for teachers, if the central depart- 

 ment would take the initiative. The retention of Is. per head 

 of the capitation-allowance now paid to Education Boards for 

 school-maintenance would provide at once, and in the most 

 equitable way I know, a fund sufficient to meet the cases of 

 all teachers who, through ill-health or increasing years, find 

 it necessary to retire from the profession." 



Since these lines were first written there has been a re- 

 markable impetus given to the question of State pensions, 

 and in Germany legislation has taken place, known as the 

 "workers' insurance legislation," which provides the working 

 people of Germany with three kinds of compulsory insurance, 

 the first being to make provision against sickness. This fund 

 is controlled by the people themselves. The second fund pro- 

 vides for insurance against accident ; this is controlled by the 

 employers of labour. The third fund provides for the grant- 

 ing of old-age pensions, on account of disablement or old age. 

 There the State steps in and controls. 



In England several important schemes have lately been 

 proposed, among which may be mentioned one by Mr. Charles 

 Booth and one by the Eight Hon. Mr. Chamberlain. Mr. 

 Booth proposes that every inhabitant of the British Isles, on 

 reaching the age of sixty-five, is to receive as a right the sum 

 of 5s. a week until his death, unless he or she has in the ten 

 years before that age been in receipt of poor-house relief, or 

 has been convicted of crime. Mr. Chamberlain's scheme 

 differs widely from the above. He proposes to establish a 

 State Pension Fund. The payments to it are to be voluntary. 

 There are for men tables of payment in a returnable and non- 

 returnable scale. Thus on a returnable table a man who 

 before his twenty - fifth year pays £5 to the Post-OfiSce 



