FOR good or evil, the system of old-age pensions is now inaugurated. Mr Asquith makes a modest start with pensions, under conditions, for people who have reached the limit of three score years and ten. That the restrictions will be removed, the age limits extended, and the pension increased, is as certain as anything can be, and we are left wondering where all the money is to come from. We have every right, of course, to ask the question, and, indeed, unless we are mere prodigals of national finance, we are bound to ask it. On the other hand, most of us are agreed that we must do something towards removing the reproach of social misery around us. It may be that the Prime Minister’s way of dealing with the problem is by no means the best. Time will show. Meanwhile, with this new feature in our economic arrangements, those who seek a better solution will be stimulated to the quest of effective remedies. The question is one mainly of ways and means, not of goodwill and compassion, of which there is much, thank God, in England. And any scheme for the abolition — we do not merely say the relief — of poverty must be accompanied by safeguards against idleness, and thriftlessness, and imposture. Above all, it is desirable that, so far as may be, we should free ourselves from party claims and influences, in order to meet the claims of our common humanity.