hey
made no effort to redeem their pledge. Again, Mr. Chamberlain, in
1903, promised old-age pensions as a part of his Tariff Reform
proposal, but the Conservative Party refused to agree to the inclusion
of old-age pensions in that programme and forced that great man in the
height of his power and his career to throw out old-age pensions from
the Tariff Reform programme and to write a letter to the newspapers to
say that he had done so.

We, the Liberal Party, did not promise old-age pensions at the
election of 1906. The subject was scarcely mentioned by any of the
candidates who are now your Members. Certainly it did not occupy at
all a prominent position. We did not promise old-age pensions; we gave
old-age pensions. When the Old-Age Pensions Bill was before the House
of Commons, what was the attitude of the Conservative Party? Did they
do anything to try to reduce or control the expenditure of that great
departure? On the contrary. As my right honourable friend the
Chancellor of the Exchequer has told the House of Commons, amendments
to the Old-Age Pensions Bill were moved or received the official
support of the Whips of the Conservative Party which would have
raised the cost of that scheme to fourteen millions a year. And the
Liberal Government, which was making this great effort, which was
doing the work, which was keeping the Tory promise, was reproached and
was derided for not accepting the proposals which these irresponsible
philanthropists, these social reformers on the cheap, these
limited-liability politicians, were so ready to move. And Lord
Halsbury, the late Lord Chancellor, one of the leaders of the
Conservative Party, a man with a powerful influence in their councils,
said in a public speech that the old-age pensions as proposed by the
Government were so paltry as to be almost a mockery.

I do not think any fair-minded or impartial man, or any average
British jury, surveying the record of the Conservative Party upon
old-age pensions, could come to any other conclusion than that they
had used this question for popularity alone; that they never meant to
give old-age pensions; that they only meant to get votes by promising
to give them; that they would have stopped them being given if they
could; that while the Bill was on its way they tried to embarrass the
Government, and to push things to unpractical extremes; and now, even
when the pensions have been given, they would not pay for them if they
could h