124 . SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



Nor was the measure so tre>mendous a step in the dark. The initial 

 cost O'f Old Age Pensions was but a twentieth part, and the pi'esent cost 

 is bub a tenth part, o^f the colossal sum demanded for the endowment of 

 motherhood. 



iv. It will be gathered from the two preceding objections that the 

 proposed scheme is likely to result in a diminution ol the provisions at 

 Nature's feast, to use a Malthusian metaphor. It is now to be added 

 that the number of guests will probably be increased. There will be 

 a serious stimulus to population. Now the pressure oi population on 

 resources may not he very alanning in this conntry at present. But 

 it is tenable tliat as regards this danger we are only enjoying a reprieve, 

 ' an age of economic gi'ace ' (cp. Marshall, Economic Journal, 1907, 

 p. 10). Is it wise to commit the countiy to a system which may 

 prove imsuitable, yet unalterable? 



V. The increase of population might be welcomed if it consisted 

 of the higher types. But in the current proposals one sees no security 

 for the improvement of the race. It is not suggested that Governments 

 might use for this purpose the power which they will acquire as 

 distributors of a bounty. Eather it is to be apprehended that the least 

 desirable classes, say Charles Booth's Class A and Class B, will be 

 encouraged to increase and multiply. It is argued, indeed, that the 

 better class of artisans will be encouraged to keep up their good stock ; 

 while the undesirable class are already so improvident that no stimulus 

 could add to their- recklessness. But these arguments, based on a 

 calculation of motives, seem precarious in view of the enormous risk 

 involved. There are degrees of improvidence; there must be many 

 who are not so improvident but that they may be made more sO' by 

 encouragement. The endowment of parents in these classes at the 

 expense ol the income-tax-paying classes may realise the gloomiest 

 anticipations of Dean Inge. The effect will be ' to penalise and sterilise 

 those who pay the doles ' ; to' precipitate the ruin of the great middle 

 class, to which England owes so much {Edinburgh, Review, April 1919). 



21. Let us now consider some alternative arrangements which make 

 for the advantages and avoid the dangers which have been described. 



Some arrangements calculated to render the freedo^m of competition 

 more acceptable follow automatically from that liberation ; for the 

 removal of restrictions on the work of women is calculated to increase 

 their efficiency, and an increase in their efficiency will be attended, 

 ceteris paribus, with an increase in their contributions tO' their families. 



i. The burden of the family borne by its head does not increase 

 in proportion to the number o-f children ; for soane contribution towards 

 family expenses is often made by the elder children. It appears from 

 an investigation recently made by Professor Bowley that in rather more 

 than a third of the households which he examined there were ' earning 

 children.' It is presumable that they contributed something over and 

 above their keep to the maintenance of the family (cp. Bowley, 

 'Livelihood and Poverty,' p. 31). The family wonld be losers 

 pecuniarily by the removal of these children. Many of these members 

 would be daughters, by hypothesis in the future more efficient than at 

 present. 



