I am speaking because hon. Members have carried on the oratory and I might just as well have an innings as hon. Members on the opposite side. I am here openly, avowedly and unashamedly to support the Bill, and I have been as long in touch with the poor as any Member on the opposite side of the House. I was caring for the poor when the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs was a baby in arms. My best friends have been among the poor and I will continue to care for them to the end of my days. This Bill has not been presented as a perfect Bill, but as far as it goes it is a good Bill, because it brings help to those who most need it. That is why I support the Bill. Do you think that a poor old soul living and paying rent on 10s. a week, or a man and his wife on £1 a week as their total income should not receive something more weekly than old people living in a home where there is something like £4 or £5 coming in every week? I support the Bill just because those absolutely dependent on the pension will receive more. It goes down to the lowest and it tries to lift them up and to help them and make them more happy.

In principle the Bill is sound and is calculated to do an infinite amount of good. I have no doubt that under normal conditions the Government would have presented quite a different Bill, but we must recognise that we are engaged in a terrible conflict to-day and if anything went amiss in that conflict and Hitler got his heel onEngland—thank God he never will—the working class and the poor would be the first people who would suffer. That is the reason why we should put our whole strength into the war and end it as speedily as possible. I am proud of my country and proud of the Government, because in no other country in the world would such a Bill as this be introduced in face of the huge war expenditure. It is a great event of faith and it is to the overwhelming credit of Britain that this Bill has been introduced at this moment.

It is difficult to satisfy everybody. Some people get into that grumbling and fault-finding way of saying, Because somebody else wants to do a thing, it is altogether wrong. If we on this side of the House want to do a thing the Opposition will always say that it is wrong, which reminds me of the story of a man who was fault-finding. He never was satisfied, but I think he was a good man, and he passed away. A neighbour had a dream one night that he had passed over and had gone to glory, and among the very first he met there was this man. The neighbour said to him, "Why, you will be happy now. Surely you are satisfied." He took off his crown and held it up, and he said, "Do you call that a fit? "It is very difficult to satisfy some people, but I believe that all over the country the effort of the Government will meet with general approval. Far too much has been said about the means test. I am not an old Member but I have a vivid recollection that the means test in regard to a certain Pensions Bill was regarded as a heaven-sent test. I supported that Bill, and while I shall never derive a halfpenny of benefit from it, I shall pay as long as I am a Member of tills House very gladly the amount assessed. But I do not see why any party should be a pigeon to-day and a raven to-morrow. I want consistency and I have always striven for that, and I want consistency from hon. Members opposite.