be
justified from the point of view of charity and the common good. In
marked contrast to this opinion is the English movement for Old Age
pensions, which came to its first fruition in 1908--a huge charity
started on the credit of the state, the extension of which might
ultimately involve a cost comparable with that of the army or the navy.
Schemes of the kind have been adopted in the Australasian colonies with
limitations and safeguards; and they seem likely to develop into a new
type of poor-relief organization for the aged and infirm (Report: Royal
Commission on Old Age Pensions, Commonwealth of Australia, 1906). In
England, partly to meet the demand for better state provision for the
aged, the Local Government Board in 1900 urged the boards of guardians
to give more adequate outdoor relief to aged deserving people, and laid
no stress on the test of destitution, or, in other words, the limitation
of relief to what was actually "necessary," the neglect of which has led
to new difficulties. History has proved that demoralization results from
the wholesale relief whether of the mass of the citizens, or of the
able-bodied, or of the children, and the proposal to limit the endowment
to the aged makes no substantial difference. The social results must be
similar; but social forces work slowly, and usually only the
unanswerable argument of financial bankruptcy suffices to convert a
people habituated to dependence, though the inward decay of vitality and
character may long before be manifest. Ultimately the distribution of
pensions by way of out-door relief, corrupting a far more independent
people, is calculated to work a far greater injury than the _annona
civica_. Such an endowment of old age might indeed be justified as part
of a system of regulated labour, which, as in earlier times, could not
be enforced without some such extraneous help, but it could not be
justified otherwise. It is naturally associated, therefore, with
socialistic proposals for the regulation of wage.

In the light of the principles of charity, which we have considered
historically, we have now to turn to two questions: charity and
economics, and charity and socialism.

The economics of charity.

The object of charity is to render to our neighbour the services and
duties of goodwill, friendship and love. To prevent distress charity
has for its further object to preserve and develop the manhood and
womanhood of individuals and their self-main