"Then you stand for the Living Pension as well as for the Living Wage?"
"Precisely. But nearly all pension schemes, like most out-relief systems, fix the allowance at a starvation figure. Sums of four or five shillings won't save old people from hardship. For example, we have in the Poplar workhouse old pensioners who received as much as six shillings a week. They found they couldn't live outside on that, and so had no alternative but the House. Only the other day there was another six-shilling pensioner admitted to the House. He had struggled on outside in his one room, selling and pawning his few things bit by bit to eke out a living until he hadn't a stick left. So, although receiving a pension of six shillings a week, he was forced into the workhouse."
"Do you find the same thing happening in regard to old people assisted by a friendly society or a trade union?"
"Occasionally we do," answered Crooks. "The other day, for instance, a superannuated trade unionist came before the Board, an old man blunt in speech and not without independence.
"'We understand you have a pension of six shillings a week,' says the Chairman.
"'That's all right, guv'nor. But how could you pay three shillings a week out of that for the rent of our one room and then you and the wife live on the rest?'
"Take another case," resumed Crooks as we crossed Commercial Road. "A fine-looking old woman enters the relief committee room, scrupulously clean but poorly clad—a splendid specimen of a self-respecting honourable old English woman.
"'Now, my good woman, what can we do for you?'
"'Well, sir, we've nothing left in the world, and I've come to see if you can assist us?'
"'Where's your husband?'