[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1
Sin,—Amid the chorus of welcome with which this sinister measure has been received, it is surely time that someone spoke out strongly on the other side, and wrote it down what it really will be if carried—an unmitigated misfortune to workmen and employers, to poor and rich alike—one of the blunders that are worse than crimes, because their conse- quences are likely to be more ruinous than those of any ordinary crime. There are certainly some signs that the More this Bill is looked into the more it is distrusted. The Spectator, for instance, far too kind and gentle towards it at first, is becoming severe in its just criticism. For my own part, being a septuagenarian and on the retired list, with no employees except a couple of domestic servants, I can look at the probable effect of the Bill from a fairly detached and impartial point of view, and I have no hesitation in saying that its provisions will be destructive of self-respect, thrift, independence, and all the best and most virile qualities of the working class, and you may depend upon it there will be such an epidemic of imaginary and simulated sickness as this country has never seen. I can only hope that, even at this eleventh hour, the nation will wake up and see where it is drifting. Non-contributory old-age pensions were bad and extravagant enough, but this measure is far, far worse, inasmuch as it puts a premium on laziness and malingering, and, as usual in such cases, the most worthless and unprincipled part of the population will get most of the benefit at the expense of their sturdier and worthier fellows.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Ex-EMPLOYER.
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