95 



THE ETHICAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF OLD 

 AGE PENSIONS. 



By R. M. JOHNSTON, I.S.O., F.S.S. 



(Read November 22, 1905.) 



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 



The whole question of making State provision for the 

 maintenance and support of all helpless and infirm persons 

 who have survived the age of 65 years is too often, in con- 

 troversy, clouded by the frequent use of the abstract term 

 ''State," as if it represented, in itself, a real, distinct, and 

 independent entity. 



The provision for the maintenance and support of all 

 dependents of the community in any one year — whether 

 children, helpless invalids, improvident persons., or the 

 aged infirm — is purely an economic question, and depends, 

 not upon an ideal State, but directly and entirely upon the 

 products and services created or supplied by the inde- 

 pendent active breadwinners of the community for the 

 time being. Nay, more; every function of the State, as 

 «uch, which absorbs time and labour, directly or indirectly, 

 by means of general taxation, is wholly maintained by the 

 usefullv and intelligently directed services of the active 

 breadwinners of the community for the time being. 



It will be observed that much stress is laid upon the 

 phrase, "the active breadwinners of the community for the 

 time being," for it will be made apparent hereafter that the 

 whole argument in favour of Old Age Pensions, both from 

 an ethical and economic point of view, rests upon the fact 

 that the active independent breadwinner of to-day has 

 been a dependent infant and school-child in his earlier 

 years, and he may yet in his old age become one of the 

 helpless and infirm dependents upon the younger genera- 

 tion of breadwinners whom he, in his prime manhood, and 

 during their helpless stage of infancy and childhood, di- 

 rectly or indirectly through State agency, sheltere^^ •dUr 

 €ated, and maintained. 



