moment. Those vultures are always hovering around us, and I do not
believe there is any sensible, honest man who would not wish to guard
himself against them, if it were in his power to make the necessary
contribution, and if he were sure--this is a very important
point--that he would not by any accident or fraud or muddle be done
out of the security he had paid for. And if we choose to adopt one
system of State-aid for dealing with one class of need, and quite a
different system for dealing with quite a different class of need, it
does not lie with any one, least of all does it lie with those who
have impartially neglected every problem and every solution, to
reproach us with inconsistency.

But I go farther. The Old-Age Pensions Act, so far from being in
conflict with a scheme of contributory insurance, is really its most
helpful and potent ally. The fact that at seventy the State pension is
assured to all those who need it, makes a tremendous difference to
every form of insurance confined to the years before seventy, whether
for old age or for invalidity. I asked an eminent actuary the other
day to make me some calculations. They are rough, general
calculations, and no doubt they might be more exact. But roughly, I
believe it to be no exaggeration to say that the rates to cover a man
till seventy are in many cases scarcely half what they would be, if
they had to cover him till death. Do you see what that means? It is a
prodigious fact. It is the sort of fact by the discovery of which
people make gigantic fortunes; and I suggest to you that we should
make this gigantic fortune for John Bull. It means that the whole
field of insurance has become much more fruitful than it ever was
before, that there is a new class of insurance business possible which
never was possible before. It means that the whole field of insurance
is far more open to the poorest class of people than it was before,
and that with a proper system the benefits of the Old-Age Pensions
Act would not be confined to the actual pensioners who are drawing
their money, but would extend forwards in anticipation to all other
classes and to all other people, and that so far as five shillings a
week is concerned--that is not much unless you have not got it--the
actuarial position of every man and woman in this country has been
enormously improved by the Old-Age Pensions Act.

It is of that improvement that we mean to take advantage next year.
Next year, when