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Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England
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Historical SummaryNot without significance is the point of View of a veteran labor leader, Will Crooks, who had himself as a worker encountered many of the hardships which the government by its social legislation was seeking to ameliorate. The following argument was directed in particular against the opponents of old-age pensions.
Parliamentary Debates, 4th Session, 28th Parliament, 1909 4th series, Vol. CXCII, pp. 193–197. World History 461. A Labor Member of Parliament on Old-Age Pensions (July 9, 1908)
Justice in place of charity demanded for the veterans of creative industry
[After alluding sarcastically to charges by fellow members of parliament that the aged pensioners would waste their meager pensions on beer, he asked:] Who amongst you has such a clear record as to be able to point to the iniquity and wickedness of an old man of seventy? I said before, and I repeat it, if a man is foolish enough to get old, and if he has not been artful enough to get rich, you have no right to punish him for it. It is no business of yours. It is sufficient for you to know he has grown old. After all, who are these old men and women? . . . They are the veterans of industry, people of almost endless toil, who have fought for and won the industrial and commercial supremacy of Great Britain. Is their lot and end to be the Bastille of the everlasting slur of pauperism? We claim these pensions as a right. Ruskin, I think, read you a little homily on the subject — "Even a labourer serves his country with his spade and shovel as the statesman does with his pen, or the soldier with his sword." He has a right to some consideration from the State. Here in a country rich beyond description there are people poverty-stricken beyond description. There can be no earthly excuse for the condition of things which exists in this country to-day. If it be necessary to have a strong Army and Navy to protect the wealth of the nation, do not let us forget that it is the veterans of industry who have created that wealth; and let us accept this as an instalment to bring decency and comfort to our aged men and women.
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Chicago: "A Labor Member of Parliament on Old-Age Pensions (July 9, 1908)," Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England in Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England, ed. Edward Potts Cheyney (1861-1947) (Boston: Ginn, 1935, 1922), 777–778. Original Sources, accessed May 30, 2023, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LBNX17UB375ABGZ.
MLA: . "A Labor Member of Parliament on Old-Age Pensions (July 9, 1908)." Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England, in Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England, edited by Edward Potts Cheyney (1861-1947), Boston, Ginn, 1935, 1922, pp. 777–778. Original Sources. 30 May. 2023. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LBNX17UB375ABGZ.
Harvard: , 'A Labor Member of Parliament on Old-Age Pensions (July 9, 1908)' in Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England. cited in 1922, Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England, ed. , Ginn, 1935, Boston, pp.777–778. Original Sources, retrieved 30 May 2023, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LBNX17UB375ABGZ.
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