ere. They have to bear their
share of Old Age Insurance. This law was passed in 1889, at the close of
the first year of the present Kaiser's reign. His father, the Emperor
Frederick, during his brief reign had not favoured the principles of
State Socialism; but the young Emperor William in November 1888
announced that he would further the work begun by _his grandfather_, and
though the difficulties of insurance for old age were very great, yet,
with God's help, they would prove not to be insuperable.

Certainly the effort was by far the greatest that had yet been made by
any State. The young Emperor and his Chancellor sought to build up a
fund whereby 12,000,000 of work-people might be guarded against the ills
of a penniless old age. Their law provided for all workmen (even men in
domestic service) whose yearly income did not exceed 2000 marks (L100).
Like the preceding laws, it was compulsory. Every youth who is
physically and mentally sound, and who earns more than a minimum wage,
must begin to put by a fixed proportion of that wage as soon as he
completes his sixteenth year. His employer is also compelled to
contribute the same amount for him. Mr. Dawson, in the work already
referred to, gives some figures showing what the joint payment of
employer and employed amount to on this score. If the workman earns L15
a year (_i.e._ about 6s. a week), the sum of 3s. 3-1/2d. is put by for
him yearly into the State Fund. If he earns L36 a year, the joint annual
payment will be 5s. 7-1/2d.; if he earns L78, it will be 7s. a year, and
so on. These payments are reckoned up in various classes, according to
the amounts; and according to the total amount is the final annuity
payable to the worker in the evening of his days. That evening is very
slow in coming for the German worker. For old age merely, he cannot
begin to draw his full pension until he has attained the ripe age of
seventy-one years. Then he will draw the full amount. He may anticipate
that if he be incapacitated; but in that case the pension will be on a
lower scale, proportioned to the amounts paid in and the length of time
of the payments.

The details of the measure are so complex as to cause a good deal of
friction and discontent. The calculation of the various payments alone
employs an army of clerks: the need of safeguarding against personation
and other kinds of fraud makes a great number of precautions necessary;
and thus the whole system becomes tied up with