§ Let me say a word now as to the manner in which this scheme is to be carried out, before I come to deal with its cost. I am only going into the broadest outline, as the House will understand. I am ashamed to take up so much time, but this is a matter in which I am sure everybody is interested. The outline which I am supplying will be filled up in detail by my right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board and others on further inquiry and at a later stage. I want now just to get the main features. The applicant will be supplied at the post office with a form of application, in the filling up of which it will be the duty of the local postmaster to give him all the assistance which he needs. The application when filled up will then be transmitted to the local pension authority. The selection of an area over which the pension authority is to act is a difficult matter, but on the whole, we have come to the conclusion to take administrative counties and municipal boroughs and urban districts with a population of 20,000 and over. The pension authority will be a committee appointed by the county, or the borough, or the urban district council, as the case may be, either from within or from without its own body. To meet the case of very large boroughs like Liverpool, with its population of 700,000, it will be necessary to enable the committee to appoint sub-committees; or again in the counties the area is too large to secure effective administration by one committee, and we propose that the pension authority shall act through local committees appointed by them for suitable areas. As this money is entirely provided by the State and not by the locality, as it comes out of the taxes and not out of the rates, it is perfectly clear that the central authority must have some voice in the 474 matter, and, indeed, a very decided voice; and so to secure central control, we propose to set up in each of these districts a pension officer who will act with the pension committee. The pension officer will be an excise officer, for they are the class of man best fitted for this kind of work, and we hope to come to an arrangement with the local authority by which, in consideration of our handing over to them the collection and enjoyment of what are called the establishment licences which it is now part of the duty of the excise officers to collect, making a fair contribution of course out of State funds for the expense so cast upon them, these excise officers will be set free during the necessary part of their time for the purpose of pension duties. If the pension authority and the pension officer between them agree, there is an end of the matter, and the pension is granted; but if there is a difference of opinion, then there must be an appeal, and that appeal ought to be to the Local Government Board or to some officer appointed by them. That seems to be the simplest machinery that could possibly be devised for the purpose. The pensioner, then, as soon as his application is granted will receive a pension certificate with a book of weekly or monthly coupons, as the case may be, which will be payable to him at the post office. The pension, of course, will be inalienable and incapable of being charged, and will be payable only to the pensioner or to those authorised to receive it. I think that is all I need say on this point about machinery.