There would be no savings whatever. The net cost would certainly be well over £2,000,000 and, in present circumstances, we cannot afford that. The next objection I have is that, if we were to make the contributory old age pensions payable at any age less than that which will qualify for non-contributory pensions, then we would have to attach to the contributory pensions a retiring condition. We must start with the general principle that the State has no justification for saying to any man born into this world: "Thou shalt not work," whether his age be 50, 60 or 70. If a man is entitled to fulfil the Divine dispensation, he has to earn his bread whatever age he may be but, apart from that, we could not enforce a retirement condition attaching to contributory old age pensions. We should have all sorts of evasions, fraud and cheating, and it would be administratively impossible to enforce such a condition.
This Bill, let me again remind the House, is based on the insurance principle, that a man gets what he pays for. It may be that the State and the community — and we all know it is the community who will pay for this in the end — will come in and supplement the contribution paid by the wage earner and give him terms which he himself in present circumstances may not be able to pay for, but, if we couple that with a condition that a man must stop earning at a certain age and after that has to account for every drop of sweat and every move of his hands to some sort of social welfare inspector, where will we be? Quite frankly, we cannot have liberty and at the same time enforce a retirement condition.
Though it may press a little on some people to say to them: "You will get your contributory old age pensions when you reach the age of 70 but up to that you have got to continue as you were predestined to do from the day you were born — to fend for yourself," there is another aspect to the matter. The general standard of physical health and, shall I say, intellectual capacity in the community as a whole, is growing, and in the most advanced communities in the world to-day the general tendency is to raise the age limit at which a person is considered as not being capable of maintaining himself by his own efforts.
Take the case of Norway and Canada. Norway is a country very much like our own — a small country not endowed with any great natural resources, a community which has to live by a great deal of hard labour in very unpropitious circumstances. In Norway and Canada, the age is 70. In Great Britain, where the Beveridge Plan was welcomed so enthusiastically, even Beveridge was very definitely opposed to this idea of compelling people to stop working at the age of 65. In Great Britain, the general recommendation now is to raise the age at which a person may secure a retirement pension.
I think the point of view which has been advanced here—not, I would say, with any great fanaticism — by Deputy Corish, Deputy Larkin and Deputy Sherwin, is now tending to be rejected by those who have had experience of how the retirement condition works in practice. In any event, let us face the fact that this is a beginning. I do not say it is perfect. I am perfectly certain that when it has been in operation for 12 months or two years, we shall discover a great many things we have overlooked, but at least it is a beginning. If the productivity of the community — which is, of course, the fundamental condition which has to be fulfilled — justifies retiring people at 68 or reducing the age for non-contributory as well as contributory pensions to the age of 68, then we can have another look at it.
