Yesterday’s News 29. Pensions
YESTERDAY’S NEWS
Last time, we looked at the different meetings that took place in the Reading Room, including one called the ‘pensions committee’. This was a new one to me.
The Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 represented a big step towards what we now know as the welfare state. Those aged 70 years or over could apply to get an order book allowing them to claim 5 shillings a week (£38 at today’s prices) at the local post office. But there were quite a lot of restrictions. People were ineligible if they had savings over £31 10s; if they had ever ‘habitually failed to work according to [their] ability’, in other words, if they had been workshy; if they had lived in Britain for less than twenty years; or if they had been in prison in the last ten years.
Because the state did not have all the relevant information about claimants in one place, applicants for the pension had to be assessed at home by a Pensions Officer. Their details were then sent for approval to a local committee. The problems this could cause crofters was flagged up on Coll:
‘Pensions: The Pension Officer for the district of Coll has been round the island making preliminary enquiries as to the qualifications of the claimants. The enquiries are of a pretty searching nature, as to the means and income of applicants. In cases where a croft and more or less stock is in question, it is very puzzling to make up a statement of all the transactions during the last year or two, showing the income and the outlays, particularly as such details are not usually kept by any of the small class of holders. Before the statement could be exact, it would require to be kept in a book for the purpose, which very few would care to be at the trouble doing, and, besides, such was not expected at all to be necessary. In the case of pensions to employees of the Government or to others favoured with such, there is not such a sharp enquiry as to their means and substance obtaining it. No doubt the pension is meant for people of limited means as a provision for their old age. Those who have incomes enough to support them do not need a pension, and are therefore de-barred from it; and to guard against imposition, it may be necessary to make some sort of an enquiry. But we think that very few persons would ask for the pension, in rural districts particularly, save those who are entitled to it or are in need of it, and therefore if given to all applicants of the age in such districts, it would not be much out of what is intended, and no punishing enquiries would be necessary at all. Again, the private affairs of each applicant may become known to the public, as they will most likely be laid before the sub-committees. No doubt members of such committees are supposed to maintain secrecy in the matter. But what five or six people hear is not kept from spreading. At all events, this contingency ought to be met somehow, and the enquiries be kept by the Pension Officer alone, except in cases where an appeal is brought forward by an applicant. However, when the scheme gets well under way, it will work more smoothly, and be better understood, and any deficiency remedied. There will not be many applicants from Coll, probably about 30 or so, as the population is so small.’
(Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser, 17 October 1908, p. 6)
A letter from someone else on Coll signing themselves ‘No Pauperism’ went further. His (or her) point was many people hated the humiliation of being classed as ‘paupers’ under the existing Poor Law, in place since 1845. The assessment for the new old age pension felt very much the same—and it was being done by the same people:
‘OLD AGE PENSIONS AND PAUPERISM. Sir, Old people here are not quite as enthusiastic about the old age pension scheme now that they see the way it is be worked. When the Act passed first, it was understood, and was asserted by the members of the Government in charge of the Bill, that these pensions, when established, would contain no tinge of pauperism of any kind; but it is found now that the wind has changed completely, and that the whole management and administration is given to the very men who fix and determine :parochial relief, namely, the Parish Councils, in rural districts, at any rate, and possibly also the same officials.
‘Now, it matters very little to the recipients whether the amount fixed upon by these Councils to be given them is to be paid by the postmaster of the district or by the inspector of the poor, seeing that the amount is fixed by the Parish Councils. There is nothing we are aware of calculated to give the pension a more direct pauper tinge than that, and the whole matter seems to amount to a breach of trust with the people by those who are responsible for such an arrangement … Why not give these pensions in the same way as those in Government employ get theirs, and not through any Council? That would be satisfactory and contain no element of complaint by anyone. I am, etc. NO PAUPERISM.’
(Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser, 26 September 1908, p. 3)
This criticism could also be made on Tiree:
‘The following have been appointed a [pensions] sub-committee for the parish of Tiree: H MacDiarmid [the factor, who had been the chair of the Tiree Poor Law parochial board], Island House, convener; Thomas Barr, farmer [of 1200 acres], Balephetrish; John MacFadyen, farmer, Caoles; Dr. Alex. Buchanan, Tiree; and Rev. William A Gillies [Church of Scotland minister]. At a meeting held in the Reading Room, Scarinish, on Thursday last week, Mr H MacDiarmid was unanimously appointed chairman, and Mr M[alcolm] MacLean, Kirkapol [the island’s Registrar], was appointed clerk.’
(Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser, 3 October 1908, p. 6)