I agree most whole-heartedly with those who say that in attempting to relieve distress or to regulate the general levels of employment, we must be most careful not to facilitate the very disorganisation of industry which causes distress.  But I do not agree with those who say that every man must look after himself, and that the intervention by the State in such matters as I have referred to will be fatal to his self-reliance, his foresight, and his thrift.  We are told that our non-contributory scheme of old-age pensions, for instance, will be fatal to thrift, and we are warned that the great mass of the working classes will be discouraged thereby from making any effective provision for their old age.  But what effective provision have they made against old age in the past?  If terror be an incentive to thrift, surely the penalties of the system which we have abandoned ought to have stimulated thrift as much as anything could have been stimulated in this world.  The mass of the labouring poor have known that unless they made provision for their old age betimes they would perish miserably in the workhouse.  Yet they have made no provision; and when I am told that the institution of old-age pensions will prevent the working classes from making provision for their old age, I say that cannot be, for they have never been able to make such provision.  And I believe our scheme, so far from preventing thrift, will encourage it to an extent never before known.

It is a great mistake to suppose that thrift is caused only by fear; it springs from hope as well as from fear; where there is no hope, be sure there will be no thrift.  No one supposes that five shillings a week is a satisfactory provision for old age.  No one supposes that seventy is the earliest period in a man’s life when his infirmities may overwhelm him.  We have not pretended to carry the toiler on to dry land; it is beyond our power.  What we have done is to strap a lifebelt around him, whose buoyancy, aiding his own strenuous exertions, ought to enable him to reach the shore.

And now I say to you Liberals of Scotland and Dundee two words—­“Diligence and Daring.”  Let that be your motto for the year that is to come.  “Few,” it is written, “and evil are the days of man.”  Soon, very soon, our brief lives will be lived.  Soon, very soon, we and our affairs will have passed away.  Uncounted generations will trample heedlessly upon our tombs.  What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?  How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal?  And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days.  Humanity will not be cast down.  We are going on—­swinging bravely forward along the grand high road—­and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.

THE SOCIAL FIELD