166 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



Deep Injustice to the Great Middle-Classes 



It is doubtful whether the present Government is aware of 

 the deep-seated, bitter feeling of resentment which has been 

 created among the great Middle-Classes section of the British 

 public, by the marked inso2ician,ce with which every Government, 

 whether Tory or Eadica], treats it, and which in time will have 

 to be reckoned with as a factor in the political situation, just 

 as much as Socialism or Irish Nationalism. This section is 

 tired of political trickery and of being constantly mulcted to 

 pay for public ineptitude arising out of party warfare, and it 

 is beginning to ask for a change. The demand may perchance 

 grow louder and stronger before long. 



If the Old Age Pensions Act is intended merely to make 

 provision for the remainder of the lives of the poor stranded 

 ones among our great army of workers for whom the present 

 Government rightly feels responsible, nobody will object, but 

 if it means more than this, it is nothing less than the ruthless 

 robbery of British taxpayers to pay for the general ineptness 

 and studied indifference of past Governments to public require- 

 ments. Had Governments — past and present — devoted but one 

 fiftieth part of the time wasted in petty wranglings and 

 senseless party strife to the needs of the commonweal, the 

 Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 would not have been on the 

 Statute book to-day. 



What the Workers w^ant 



The British working-man was, of course, not fool enough to 

 reject the scheme of " Old Age Pensions," which came entirely 

 out of the pockets of the British tax-payers, but he hardly 

 expected this ridiculously quixotic method of dealing with the 

 matter. Put before him a sound, sensible, practical scheme, 

 whereunder he would be expected to co-operate with his 

 employer and the State, in building up for himself a certainty 

 in the future in respect to a suitable provision for old age or 

 premature infirmity, for sickness and suchlike misadventures 

 of life, and you will give him just what he expects, what he 

 is hoping for, and what he is perfectly willing to subscribe to. 

 But the scheme must be sound and efficient all along the 

 line, or he will have nothing to do with it. 



It has been shown in these pages how disastrously the great 

 State Pauper charity has affected the people. Is there then a 

 statesman, politician, tradesman, or working-man in the country 

 who honesty believes that this last addition to the great Pauper 

 institution will ultimately result in real benefit to the people. 



