Reasons for a Old Age Pension

*THE WORKER*

Brisbane, March 2, 1895.

“A Bit Off !”

[Those who do not believe in old-age pensions are invited to read this story, which originally appeared in an English paper.]

We met a man the other day who was growing old. He had been a journeyman for nearly, forty years, and had been discharged because – Well, we really could not understand why any more than the man himself. He was a sober man, punctual, respectful,quick at his work, and not paid more than he was worth. He had never been absent on the score of ill health, and he never took a holiday. Yet he was discharged.

Now, “firstly,” as our parson says, why was he going about the streets unable to get work, though quite able to do it? Had he stayed too long in one place? Changes had been frequent, but he went on with his work unheeding whose name was in the imprint. At every week end he was paid his wages,

all that was due to him, and he wrought his best, week in, week out. Younger men grew up and passed him. He did not seek promotion: he merely wanted to be left alone to go on in his patient, persevering style. The younger men who passed him were his fiends. He was not in their way, and they were not in his.

Year after year he toiled in that firm, from the first day of his apprenticeship to the last day of his service, a period of forty years.

One day he got the sack!

For forty years he had been in that office every day barring Sundays. Through sunshine and through rain he strode along to business, and at night – all hours of the night – he went home to his family when his work was done. The forty years he saw those shops being opened and the windows cleaned. For forty Good Fridays as he went to work he saw those shop-shutters being washed with buckets of water and a broom. The boys he used to nod at became men, and some became men nearly as old as himself. Some died, some dropped out and were forgotten, but still he went on the same side of the way, treading on the same stones, or on those which replaced them, imperceptibly getting older himself, but going to the same work the same way for forty years.

How many times with an aching heart?

Wife or child ill, or dying; himself worn and feverish with night-watching, yet he trudged along. Work must be done. If he did not do it someone else would, and he could not afford that.

The little bit of looking-glass which he nailed against the wall many years ago shows him a different face to the one he had then. That was full, and round, and bright. This is not so round, and has lines about it which years of care have brought, and which will never go away any more. His hair is not so much trouble as it used to be when he could not keep it out of his eyes. He can keep it out of his eyes now, and it is not so dark as it was; and his beard if anything is whiter, so he shaves it off, and every crop he submits to the razer seems whiter than the last.

Always steadily at work, his surroundings have come to be a part of himself, and he has grown to fit them. He has spent many more hours of his life in the office than he has at home, and it has become his habit to long for the familiar surroundings of the grimy place. Used to the requirements of that office he does his work suitably well. No complaints at all, but one day he got the sack.

His apprentice master was gone to the far away land from whence no traveller returns; his successor grew rich, and retired; the new proprietor wanted to know about “that old chap over there,” and somebody told him. “H'm. Been here nearly forty years, has he? A bit old-fashion, not up to date, is he? Eh! Well, well, let him alone!”

The new overseer says he is “slow and dull and not worth his salt.” He explains to the new master that he can do nothing with him, that he is “a trouble and an annoyance.” Perhaps not. Most likely the old fellow is doing all he knows to keep his job, and is nervous for fear he may give offence to the new master and his new overseer. He does not want him now?

The new master does not know him, and the new overseer does not understand him. One day there is a tiff, and the old servant gets vexed. So does the new overseer. If this worthy had not somehow fallen foul of the sore points the old man has they might have got along together very well, but it was not to be.

There was no quarrel, only a parting. The man was hurt, the overseer was sorry. The man was too full of a sense of injury and injustice to beg to be kept on; he even refused the kind offers of his friends to that end, and the overseer was not going to ask him to stop, not likely, so the two parted.

Our friend was outside, with a feeling like a lump in his throat, and tears in his voice as well as in his eyes. He did not realise it for some time. He out of work! It seemed extraordinary, and he did not know its meaning at first. It was like seven Sundays a week, with no Saturday night. But where were his friends? They were all gone to work, so it could not be Sunday. And why was not he gone to work? He was well and strong and capable, but he had no work to go to, after forty years of good service; he got up in the morning and had no need to hurry – no need to scald his throat with hot tea, nor choke himself with that last huge bit of bread and butter.

He had nowhere to go! What was he to do with his time?

Such leisure as this is all very well for people who can afford it, but when the bread-winner is idle, where does the bread come from?

From morning to night he goes about seeking further employment, but everybody is full up, and needs no other hands, and some of them do not say “No” pleasantly. They growl it out, and the seeker goes away with this doubtin his mind: “Are these men? And will their hair go thin and white, and will they have a tiff with somebody when they have been printing for forty years, and get outside, as I am? I wonder; and I wonder, too, if they will suffer as I do when a busy man blurts out 'No!” as though he would sat 'Go!' and I come away no nearer the end I seek.”

Nothing to do! What a volume there is in those few words. Hard labour in a prison is a prison is a punishment for a man who has done something wrong, but No Labour, in Perfect Liberty, is as great a punishment to a man for no other crime than having grey hair, and working faithfully and honestly for forty years.

From this point he begins to sink. He gets to look older; he grows shabby; any little show of approaching age he may have is accentuated; he is poor and sad at heart; he feels humbled; he does not mix on the old terms with the men he used to know; he is ashamed, as though he had done wrong; he has to get night work if anybody will give it to him, and he gets older and more careworn, and loses his health. In fact, he goes to the bad. Some day you say, “Where is old Tommy (or Bill, or Ben)?” And the reply is, “Oh, he's dead and buried!” You are surprised and sorry, and you say so. “He was very queer for a long time,” your friend tells you, “and one day he caught a cold and died. He was only ill a week. He never got over being sent away from that firm. I don't see that anybody could help it, although they might have let him down gently after all that time. However, poor cove, he's gone now, so it does not matter much to him. I suppose this same hard luck is waiting for us when we get to it?”

It may be so. Of the great army of toilers he was one of the rank and file, but it does seem “a bit off.”     J.G.