More important it is to remember that, for one poor person who obtains either indoor or outdoor relief, several who justly might claim it refuse to avail themselves of the tender mercies of the Poor Law. The poor, as a rule, will exhaust every penny of their savings and pawn every stick of their furniture before they seek the workhouse door. Moreover, the amount of genuine charity bestowed by the poor upon the poor is wonderful. If, then, there are 600,000 aged paupers either inside workhouses or receiving outdoor relief in the course of the year, we may be quite sure that at least as many more are as urgently in need of succour, and obtain it by increasing the poverty of their poor friends rather than by seeking from the Guardians the loaf, the 2s. 6d., and the insults which too often constitute outdoor relief.

The reader will see how probable it is that, of the 2,100,000 persons aged 65 and upwards now living in the United Kingdom, fully 1,750,000 are in a condition of poverty which at the worst is pauperism and at the best is sore need. Some 613,000 of them are certainly in receipt of poor relief during the year. Probably another 600,000 are only deterred by horror of the workhouse from recourse to the Guardians. For the remaining third, as for the other two-thirds, the life which has for three-score years been a constant struggle with poverty meets its hardest and cruellest phase at the close.

A certain number of extraordinary men exist who contrive to rear a family upon 30s. a week, and to save enough to provide for their old age. These are the few who are not merely themselves of a most frugal disposition, but who have chanced to bestow their affections upon a girl as abstemious and as thrifty as themselves. A pair of such character, blessed with perfect health and not more than two or three healthy children, may contrive to meet first the fall of earnings after 45 or 50, and finally old age itself, with a light heart. That such cases are rare will only surprise those who have never had occasion to practise thrift. Only a little less rare than the comfortable aged workmen are those who contrive to provide for themselves a tiny pension for their declining years, through the continuous sick pay of friendly society or trade union, or through the superannuation benefit of the latter. There are only 38 trade unions which provide a superannuation benefit, and these have a membership of about 600,000. They pay between them about £200,000 a year in old age pensions to about 25,000 members. How small this number appears when we compare it with the total number of persons over 65 in the United Kingdom, which is about 2,100,000 at the present time!

The value of the practice and experience of Trade Unions is very great. Summing them up, I showed in "Riches and Poverty," edition 1905, that workmen who earn their living, not by the mere exercise of physical strength, but by skill, are usually used up by the age of 60, and not infrequently by the age of 55. The latter age may be regarded as the limit of full-earning capacity for the average skilled workman. After 55 he is in the greatest danger of dismissal when trade becomes slack. From a considerable number of inquiries, I arrived at the conclusion that the full wage-earning capacity of the average skilled workman begins at 25-30 and ends at 50-55. Before 25-30 a man is inexperienced and not valued so highly as after that age. After 50-55 the age factor again begins to tell, and the workman trembles at thought of the future. Each grey hair is a deadly enemy to his livelihood.

If the skilled workman can hope to earn the full wages of his trade (full wages, it should be remembered, means about 40 to 46 weeks' pay per annum in most trades) for but 20 to 30 years, what of the men who are hewers of wood and drawers of water? The answer is that after 45 good wages are difficult to obtain, and that for the rest of their lives, if not mercifully ended by death, the earnings are poor in the summer, and often at zero in the winter. If we look at the "occupations" (with what irony the term is used in this connexion) of the inmates of workhouses at the census of 1901 we find:

WORKHOUSE INMATES (OVER 10 YEARS OF AGE)
AT CENSUS OF 1901

Males
Clerks1,079
Coachmen and grooms1,848
Carmen, carriers1,546
Seamen2,052
Dock labourers2,355
Agricultural labourers9,469
Gardeners1,232
Coal-miners1,570
Blacksmiths1,381
Carpenters, joiners2,274
Bricklayers1,212
Bricklayers' labourers1,397
Painters, glaziers2,487
Cotton operatives1,218
Tailors1,594
Shoemakers3,061
Costermongers1,521
General labourers22,129
Other occupations31,287
Without specified occupations or unoccupied16,151
106,863
Females
Domestic servants15,630
Charwomen8,176
Laundry and washing service4,554
Cotton operatives2,128
Tailoresses1,245
Milliners and dressmakers1,642
Shirtmakers, seamstresses2,814
Costermongers, hawkers1,159
Other occupations7,681
Without specified occupations or unoccupied32,220
77,249
Total male and female184,112

The large proportion of "general labourers" is very striking, while those describing themselves as dock, bricklayers' and general labourers together form one-fourth of the whole. It will also be noticed that 9,469 agricultural labourers "followed the plough to the workhouse door." In passing, I may remark that in the list of female "occupations" the presence of 15,000 domestic indoor servants should not go unnoticed.

The almost universal approval which the proposal to grant Old Age Pensions elicited would probably have carried it to fruition long before the date of the Old Age Pension Act, 1908, but for one thing and one thing only—the question of cost. It is amusing to note that the "Small Committee of Persons Interested in the Controversy respecting Old Age Pensions,"[61] practically a Committee of the Charity Organization Society, who actively opposed Old Age Pensions in 1899-1902, placed in the forefront of their "objections" the following: