itled, with scarcely any exception, to an old-age pension from the
State at the age of seventy--that fact makes it ever so much cheaper
to insure against invalidity or infirmity up to the age of seventy.
And, with the various insurance schemes which are in preparation, we
ought to be able to set up a complete ladder, an unbroken bridge or
causeway, as it were, along which the whole body of the people may
move with a certain assured measure of security and safety against
hazards and misfortunes. Then, if provision can be arranged for widows
and orphans who are left behind, that will be a powerful remedy
against the sweating evil; for, as you know, these helpless people,
who in every country find employment in particular trades, are unable
to make any fair bargain for themselves, and their labour, and this
consequently leads to the great evils which have very often been
brought to the notice of Parliament. That, again, will fit in with the
Anti-Sweating Bill we are passing through Parliament this year.

Now, I want you to see what a large, coherent plan we are trying to
work out, and I want you to believe that the object of the plan and
the results of it will be to make us a stronger as well as a happier
nation. I was reading the other day some of the speeches made by
Bismarck--a man who, perhaps more than any other, built up in his own
lifetime the strength of a great nation--speeches which he made during
the time when he was introducing into Germany those vast insurance
schemes, now deemed by all classes and parties in Germany to be of
the utmost consequence and value. "I should like to see the State"
(said Prince Bismarck in 1881), "which for the most part consists of
Christians, penetrated to some extent by the principles of the
religion which it professes, especially as concerns the help one gives
to his neighbour, and sympathy with the lot of old and suffering
people." Then, again, in the year 1884 he said: "The whole matter
centres in the question, 'Is it the duty of the State or is it not to
provide for its helpless citizens?' I maintain that it is its duty,
that it is the duty, not only of the 'Christian' State, as I ventured
once to call it when speaking of 'Practical Christianity,' but of
every State."

There are a great many people who will tell you that such a policy, as
I have been endeavouring to outline to you this afternoon, will not
make our country stronger, because it will sap the self-reliance of
th