TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 825 



the wise solution of which the welfare of a not inconsiderable part of our population! 

 may materially depend, and one, therefore, which should certainly find a place in 

 the discussions of this section of the British Association. 



All honour, let me say in the first place, to Canon Blackley, the pioneer of the- 

 movement so closely identified with his name and labours ! Canon Blackley was, 

 and is, in the opinion of many thou;^htful people, only in advance of his age, and 

 deserving of the credit of seeing that without compulsion no system of national 

 insurance worthy of the name can be carried into effect. His scheme, with others 

 subsequently proposed, was considered by a committee of the House of Commons 

 originally appointed in 1883, and reappointed in the Parliaments of 1885 and 1886, 

 ' to inquire into the best system of national provident insurance against pauperism.' 

 The report of the Committee, issued in August 1887, stated that their inquiry had 

 ' practically narrowed itself into an examination of one particular scheme,' namely, 

 Canon Blackley 's, ' which had manifestly impressed itself, whether favourably or 

 unfavourably, upon the minds of witnesses, to the exclusion of all other proposals/ 

 It might ' be briefly described,' they reported, as a scheme ' for the compulsory 

 insurance of all persons, of both sexes and of every class, by the prepayment 

 between the ages of 18 and 21 years of the sum of 10/. or thereabouts "into a 

 National Friendly or Provident Society, thereby securing to the wage-earning 

 classes 8s. per week sick-pay and 4s. per week superannuation pay after the age 

 of 70 years.' In pronouncing their opinion on the scheme, the Committee first 

 called attention to the evidence they had received from working-men and large 

 employers of labour in favour of enforced contributions to a National Insurance 

 Fund, the latter class of witnesses describing the benefits which had resulted from 

 the establishment of such funds among persons in their own employment. They 

 then proceeded to record the objections to the scheme laid before them from th& 

 administrative and actuarial points of view ; to the difficulty of enforcing the pay- 

 ments to the fund ; to the exclusion of all but wage-earners from benefit ; to the 

 discontent which would be felt by the upper and middle classes at being called 

 iipon to contribute ; and, finally, to the proposal for compulsion, which they considered 

 ' open to very strong objections.' It is clear, I think, that we are not prepared, a<t 

 any rate at present, for the adoption of so sweeping a measure. 



Canon Blackley has, indeed, since expressed his willingness to admit the idea of 

 State aid towards pensions in accordance with the proposals of the National 

 Provident League, with which he is connected ; but he appears disposed to admit 

 this and other deviations from his original plan only as stepping-stones towards a 

 general system of compulsory contributions. 



I next turn to Mr. Chamberlain's scheme. Mr. Chamberlain and the voluntary 

 Committee of Members of the House of Commons with whom he is associated 

 propose to establish a State Pension Fund, to which Parliament should be asked to 

 make an annual grant, to be supplemented by contributions from local rates. The- 

 scheme is applicable to both men and women, and contains provisions for the- 

 payment of certain sums into the Post Office Savings Bank before the age of 

 twenty-five, and certain further sums during each of the succeeding forty years, 

 which would entitle men to pensions of 13/., and women to pensions of 71. 16s. per 

 annum at sixty-five. There are other provisions for the cases of widows of persona 

 dying before sixty-five, and for other contingencies. There can be no doubt that 

 this is a serious and businesslike attempt to grapple with the problem before us, 

 but it seems open to the objection that it only touches the fringe of the question. 

 By it only the willing fish would be swept into the net, while the too numerous 

 small fry, anxious to elude the cast of the fisherman, whose especial object it 

 nevertheless is to secure them, are allowed to swim away at their ease in the sea 

 of thriftle.ssness and prospective pauperism. No one who knows the mental 

 attitude and habits of thought prevalent among a large proportion of the working- 

 classes can have failed to note the force of the resistance which they are too often 

 inclined to oppose to any attempt, however gentle, to bring them into the 

 disagreeable position of making deKnite arrangements even for the immediate 

 future, and of practising anything like systematic self-denial. The inveterate 

 dislike to looking forward, the hopefulness that in some cases seems actually \x> 



