70 A FARMER'S YEAR 



Money is deducted from dividends or other earnings to satisfy 

 income-tax. Would it not be possible by some similar legislative 

 regulations to oblige the employer to pay over a certain percentage 

 of all wages to a great insurance fund for the benefit of the person 

 who is temporarily deprived of such percentage, and, that these 

 laws might not appear invidious, to apply their principle to the 

 earnings of every class of society ? Of course this would be an 

 interference with the liberty of the subject to do what he likes 

 with what he has earned, but then so is the income-tax. That 

 goes to support the nation ; this would go to support the indi- 

 vidual, his family, or his representatives. I cannot see that 

 there is more degradation in being forced to contribute towards 

 a pension fund than in being forced to contribute towards the 

 income-tax. In fact, I believe that this system already obtains 

 in the Indian Civil Service and elsewhere, but I never heard that 

 Indian civil servants felt themselves degraded or aggrieved be- 

 cause they were obliged to comply with it. I am sure, indeed, 

 that most of us would be deeply grateful to any Government that 

 from the beginning had insisted on collecting, say, ten per cent, of 

 our earnings for our own benefit. 



Of course many would object in every walk of life, and 

 especially among the labouring classes that section of them who, 

 from improvidence or idleness, are pretty certain to end upon the 

 rates. Of course, also, because any such measure would not 

 only be difficult in its details, but unpopular among a large 

 number of voters, no Government is likely to undertake it at 

 present. Even were it convinced that it was for the welfare of 

 the nation, it is doubtful whether any Government would under- 

 take it, because as a general rule Governments think of their own 

 welfare first. And it may be argued that it is not for the wel- 

 fare of the nation. All the old saws as to the natural and 

 proper ruin and disappearance of the unfit, the unlucky, and 

 the improvident, would certainly be trotted out. Life, we 

 should be told, and the good things thereof, are to the strong 

 and the rich, and to those who know how to save or to transfer 



