" Tories " and Universal Pensions

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18370, 1 May 1925, Page 8

" Tories " and Universal Pensions

It is certainly odd, as tho Chancellor and Home. Secretary have both indicated, that a Conservative and not a Radical. Government is leading the way iu Britain in national insurance. Mr Churchill's pensions are of course contributory, men paying four-pepce a week and women two-pence, but even on that basis they aro a bold step for alleged VTories." But the fact is, there are no "Tories," or almost none, left in the. Souse of Commons. Earl Balfour the other day said that he would count it an honour to be regarded either as a Unionist, or as a Conservative, or as a, Tory, each label suggesting something; precious to him; but he waa speaking then as a philosopher and sot as a prac tical politician. In the field of prac* tice it has long been recognised that the Unionist Party could not, even if it wished, remain indifferent to, the anxieties of the masses who can never have a surplus. The "Spectator" reminded 3Vfr Baldwin when he first came into power—<a little superfluously, as we all see now—that tho ordinary working man Uvea in the presenee of four different terrors.. ~ (H o dreads first, and above "all things, unemployment, for he "knows its deadening effect, and how it "kills the body and soul. Next, even "when well employed, he dreads leaving a wife and family to charity. His <'third dread is sickness. His final dread' "is that of a miserable old age~-a twi"light existence of dependence and de"privation." That is a darker picture than the facta of life support, but it is an interesting rovclation of the modern Conservative mind. When Sir William Joynson-Hicks says that they have "given the lie to the statement that "they legislate for one class only" he is probably troubling too much about the lie, which is no longer bfljeved except by the very ignorant. Even if a Conservative Government bad no higher motive than to keep itself in office by forestalling and frustrating the Reds it would be a benevolent Government, and so far as national insurance is concerned it would consider it sympathetically, for the excellent Teason given by Mr Stracheys that "all-in insurance gives "us our unemployed at the right end."