§ Now I come to the consideration of the social problems which are urgently pressing for solution—problems affecting the lives of the people. The solution of all these questions involves finance. What the Government have to ask themselves is this: Can the whole subject of further social reform be postponed until the increasing demands made upon the National Exchequer by the growth of armaments has ceased? Not merely can it be postponed, but ought it to be postponed? Is there the slightest hope that if we deferred consideration of the matter, we are likely within a generation to find any more favourable moment for attending to it? And we have to ask ourselves this further question: If we put off dealing with these social sores, are the evils which arise from them not likely to grow and to fester, until finally the loss which the country sustains will not be infinitely greater than anything it would have to bear in paying the cost of an immediate remedy? There are hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in this country now enduring hardships for which the sternest judge would not hold them responsible; hardships entirely due to circumstances over which they have not the slightest command; the fluctuations and changes of trade—even of fashions; ill-health and the premature breakdown or death of the breadwinner. Owing to events of this kind, all of them beyond human control—at least beyond the control of the victims—thousands, and I am not sure I should be wrong if I said millions, are precipitated into a condition of acute distress and poverty. How many people there are of this kind in this wealthy land the figures of old age pensions have thrown a very unpleasant light upon. Is it fair, is it just, is it humane, is it 482 honourable, is it safe to subject such a multitude of our poor fellow-countrymen and countrywomen to continued endurance of these miseries until nations have learnt enough wisdom not to squander their resources on these huge machines for the destruction of human life? I have no doubt as to the answer which will be given to that question by a nation as rich in humanity as it is in store. Last year, whilst we were discussing the Old Age Pensions Bill, all parties in this House recognised fully and freely that once we had started on these lines the case for extension was irresistible. The Leader of the Opposition, in what I venture to regard as the most notable speeches he has probably delivered in this Parliament—I refer to his speech on the third reading of the Old Age Pensions Bill and the speech he delivered the other day on the question of unemployment—recognised quite boldly that whichever party was in power provision would have to be made in some shape or other for those who are out of work through no fault of their own and those who are incapacitated for work owing to physical causes for which they are not responsible. And there was at least one extension of the Old Age Pensions Act which received the unanimous assent of the House and which the Government were pressed to give, not merely a Parliamentary but a Statutory pledge to execute. I refer to the proposal to extend the pension to the meritorious pauper.