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Show ENGLAND'S POOR PENSION. Poverty is one of the things which will always al-ways have with us, whether we attempt a socialistic state or give pensions to the old, infirm or inefficient. ineffi-cient. England's attempt to abolish the miseries of j poverty by taxing the efficient workers in order to pay a pension to the inefficient or thriftless is proving prov-ing how fruitless it is to attempt to change human nature by legislation. Of course, no proof of this is necessary, but the attempt made by a great na- uon is interesting as snowing now great is the faith of the common people iu the stability of the government. It seems that the one great fact that no government is stronger than the individuals com posing it has been overlooked. It is so plain as to be axiomatic that you can't take out of the treasury continually unless you put something back into it J to take out. and that you cannot put back into the treasury something you haven't got. In the complicated com-plicated society of this day there are a certain number who have to be supported simply because they can not or will not support themselves. But just how far this principle should be extended is one of the greatest problems confronting modern society. It is said that pauperism in England is a direct result of the ancient poor laws; that the heritage of the present generation is the present old age pension, coming out of a natural laziness in men, supplemented by the knowledge that, whether they work or not, the state will care for them. In operation, the claim is made that the old age pension in England puts a premium on poverty and idleness. That is a burden which" the industrious indus-trious and thrifty can hardly afford to be.ir. thmm-l, Mr. Lloyd-George, the chancellor of the exchequer, says he will get the money to pay the old age pension pen-sion from persons "who are well able to pay." Whether the money isaken from those whose plethoric ple-thoric pocketbooks are easy to tap by taxation directly di-rectly or not, the fact is that the money to support the old must come eventually from the workers and producers of the wealth of the country; from the colonies and dependencies across the seas. In this view, the pension system as inaugurated in England seems to be a mistaken one. In Germany the pension pen-sion is provided by the pensioners themselves, by levying a tax on those who are in. after years to become the beneficiarjes. Eut in England the whole people are taxed; that is, the government appropriates appropri-ates from the general fund to. help a class which has proved its inability to help herself. It would be a pleasant thought to believe a generous govern ment should care for. all if it were not for the plain reversal of the principles of government, that a generous people should care for the government. An idle man does not create wealth, and neither does taxation of the well-to-do. Taxation merely distributes wealth, taking from one to give to another. an-other. Whether a nation with more people than can live comfortably on the available land can afford af-ford to carry such a burden as is proposed and is being carried out in England is a question which the future only can answer, but we believe the answer an-swer when It comes will be in the negative. |