ABSTRACT
Mr Lloyd-George The first general criticism is that this is a noncontributory scheme. So long as you have taxes imposed upon commodities which are consumed practically by every family in the country there is no such thing as a non-contributory scheme. A workman who has contributed health and strength, vigour and skill, to the creation of the wealth by which taxation is borne has made his contribution already to the fund which is to give him a pension when he is no longer fit to create that wealth. Therefore, I object altogether to the general division of these schemes into contributory and non-contributory schemes. There is, however, a class of scheme which is known as a contributory one. There is the German scheme, in which the workmen pay into a fund. It is rather a remarkable fact that most social reformers who have taken up this question have at first favoured contributory schemes, but a closer examination has almost invariably led them to abandon them on the ground that they are unequal in their treatment of the working classes, cumbersome, and very expensive, and in a country like ours hopelessly impracticable. Let me give now two or three considerations why, in my judgment, a contributory scheme is impossible in this country. In the first place, it would practically exclude women from its benefits. Out of the millions of members of friendly societies there is but a small proportion, comparatively, of women. Another consideration is that the vast majority are not earning anything and cannot pay their contributions. The second reason is that the majority of working men are unable to deflect from their weekly earnings a sufficient sum of money to make adequate provision for old age in addition to that which they are now making for sickness, infirmity, and unemployment. I do not know what the average weekly wage in this country is; we have not had a wages census since 1886…The average weekly wage in 1886 was 24s. 9d., and 57 per cent, of the working classes in this country were then earning 25s. or less. It is quite clear, therefore, that out of such wages they cannot make provision for sickness, for all the accidents and expenses of life, and also set aside a sufficient sum to provide a competence for old age as well…
