The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-05-17

IAuHEhlSM AMI TREE IhADEs
From very long editorial in the Bos-
ton Herald upon Cha.l les Booths inter-
esting work on endowment for old age,
already reviewed in the NEWS, we quote
almost at random few significant
sentences and phrases concerning pauper-
ism in free trade Britain
For many years the steady growth of
pauperism IN England has been reported,
and some OF the best students Of social
questions have been trying to devise plans
TO restrict IT., or TO remove its causes.
The present annual charge for the poor
rates is s4s, 500, 600, aud it is steadily in
fully one-half OF the working population
in England Is pauperized. "a The
hardest outlook is for the industrious
poor, who find that when old age comes
there is no place for them outside of the
workhouse. There Is nothing in
view but a career of hard work, with
such pleasures rs are secured through
family life at its best estate. Sickness
and old age cannot he provided against.
The poorest class includes most of
the old people i'm the workhouse and some
who receive parochial assistance, and
these two classes count up to more than
half the population. The plan
in general, as here proposed by England,
would cost annually So, 900, 900, of which
sum one-nalf is at present required as a
direct tax In order to meet the pauperiZed
condition chiefly of the aged in England
From these facts the Heraids wise
conclusion is a substantial agreement
with Mr.. Booth and with Canon Black
ley, that some plan for the endowment
of old age and for changing the present
methods of dealing with pauperism
seems inevitable" Mr.. Booths plan
is to collect annually about $42, ,OO0, 900
from the youth of Britain between the
ages Of 1s and 81 by special tax, col
lect an equal sum from the State, and
pay pension of five shillings week,
$125, to all persons over 65 years of
age, on the general principle that such
veterans can't possibly have saved
cent, and are too old to work.
Before pronouncing the scheme in
tolerable let us examine some of the
reasons which make it seem more
reasonable in England than here. Here
a man would generally be supposed
best able to bear special tax at about
As or 80 years of age on the average.
There such tax can only be paid be-
fore marriage. Here the savings banks,
the loan associations, the comfortable
homes, attest the prosperity of the peo-
pie. There Joseph Arch, as he said to
the writer of these lines at the Bradford
Trade Congress in 1888, is the only farm
laborer owning his own home, and he
couldn't have done so but for very
superior grandfather, while manufact-
uring worlmen are universally hand to
mouth renters, struggling for a liveli-
hood. A proposition which would here
seem monstrous is turned to there as the
only mitigation of pauperism-really
merely altering the form and name of
the disease.
But what will be the result Of such
Well meant as it Is, it can
not but render the position of the toilers
more hopeless in the end. II will re-
lieve young folks of their surplus earn
ings in youth, so that when they marry,
as they will, they must do so in pow
unrelieved by any little
savings which they might make, pow
erty encouraged by the verv fact of the
old age pension. II a workman father
has a bright son or daughter, he can
not possibly keep the child at school be-
yond Is and pay not only school f. es but
the special tax besides. Thus, while il
is now difficult for the utmost resolution
to raise the poor born child to a comfor-
table position in life, 1t would be, under
the coth-Blackley-Herald plan, abso-
lutely impossible.
II is singular that newspaper as in
telligent as the Boston Herald can
gravely discuss these matters for a