atform, and many members on both sides
of politics pledged themselves on the subject.

The weight which is always attached to the speeches of Mr. Chamberlain
gave a great impulse to the movement. He never countenanced the idea
of universal old-age pensions, which was already advocated by many;
but he strongly maintained that special provision, apart from the
poor-law and in the shape of pensions, might, and ought to, be made
for the old and deserving poor; he expressed his belief that such a
measure 'would do more than anything else to secure the happiness of
the working classes'; and he suggested as the most feasible scheme
that 'whenever a man acquires for himself in a Friendly Society or
any other society a pension of 2_s._ 6_d._ a week the State should
come in and double that pension.' Mr. Chamberlain, however, did not
insist on this precise proposal; but he gave the question a great
prominence; and among politicians on both sides there was a manifest
tendency to make party capital out of it.

A purely non-party Committee, presided over by Lord Rothschild, and
consisting mainly of distinguished financial authorities connected
with the permanent Civil Service, and therefore removed from active
politics, was appointed in 1896, in accordance with the recommendation
of the Aberdare Commission, to inquire especially into the question of
old-age pensions; and it reported in a document of conspicuous
ability. It was unanimous in condemning as impracticable or dangerous
all the schemes for such pensions that were brought before it; and it
fully confirmed the views of the preceding Commission. The report, and
the evidence on which it is based, clearly show the ways in which
measures intended for the benefit of the working class may prove in
the highest degree injurious to them.

If the matter could have been decided by pure reasoning, this report
might have been generally accepted as decisive. But many of the
supporters of the Government had at the election made speeches in
favour of old-age pensions. One of its most powerful members had
thrown his weight into the scale. The idea had taken hold of great
sections of the working classes. The trade-unions, that see in
increasing old-age poverty the chief drawback to their policy of
enforcing in each trade a uniform and minimum wage, were naturally
delighted that the State should undertake, out of public funds, to
remove their difficulty. A number of Bills dealing with the qu