The Liberal mountain has been long in labour, and has nearly been delivered of Old Age Pensions. We say nearly, advisedly; for the Government, with shocking callousness regarding the welfare of its poor, emaciated little mouse, has determined to sever it from the Budget, in which it would be protected from the wicked lords, and to embody it in a separate Bill; thus deliberately and of malice aforethought placing it at the mercy of those whom the Liberals never tire of denouncing as enemies and wreckers of all Liberal measures. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer has pledged himself to this course, and the mouse may yet fail to see the light of day.
Nevertheless, we confess to no anxiety on the matter. We have no desire to claim that our influence is visible in the result. Reforms are the gifts of capitalism, and are only granted to the workers in vain endeavours to stay their advance to power. And we are convinced that to get anything vital to their happiness the working class must take it themselves. To do that the workers must be supreme in the State, and then, of necessity, it becomes a question, not of reform, but of social reconstruction.
The Liberal “Old Age” proposal is, then, but a sop to keep the workers quiet—but such a paltry sop. The “Old Age” part is prominent enough, but surely a microscope is needed to discover the pension.
Five shillings a week when you are seventy, should you be so unfortunate as to live as long. A problematic five shillings a week at seventy— that is, of course, if you have been a good boy ; if you haven’t within five years been convicted of vagrancy, desertion, or “serious” crime; if you are not in receipt of poor relief; if your income is not more than ten shillings a week, and so on—while married couples living together are to be punished for their foolishness by having their pensions reduced to 3/9 per head.
Five shillings a week as a bribe to the worker to keep out of the workhouse, where it would cost at least 18/- to keep him. Five shillings a week as a premium on low wages to those few ancient toilers who, by some miracle, are still able to work a little. Such are the promises of the “Workers’ Budget.”
The pensioners are, indeed, condemned to live—or endeavour to live—upon a total income that in no case can exceed fifteen shillings a week. In the vast majority of cases they must die slowly upon considerably less. Happy Veterans ! Not that they are likely to be numerous. Precautions have been taken to avoid that contingency. Besides, the average working man is scrapped, as a profit producing machine for the capitalist, a score of years before the pension is to bless him. He will thus have a score or more of years in which to purify his body by fasting preparatory to entering the heaven which a generous capitalism is to provide for its worn-out beasts of burden. Truly, the workers have not words wherewith to express their thanks ! Kaiser Wilhelm, having taken the initiative in the conference of the Western European nations in the matter of promoting measures of social reform as an antidote to Socialism, must feel contempt for stingy, shop-keeping, British Liberalism, whose cheeseparing policy, he might say, would ruin all. Social reform in Liberal England limps painfully behind that of despotic Germany, and it is significant of the worth of mere social reform that the German wage-slave is, on the whole, not one whit better off than his British confrere. The enactment of social reform, in fact, cannot keep pace with the progressive crushing of the wage worker under the iron heel of Capital.
The hardships of British and German workers—of workers the world over—flow from their exploitation, and must continue until this ends. And to the conquest of Society soon or late the workers must bend their Titanic strength, for there is no help but in themselves, and no hope but in Socialism.
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