SUPERANNUATION FUNDS.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20491, 9 March 1932, Page 9

SUPERANNUATION FUNDS.

TO THE EDITOR OT THE PRESS. 'Sir, —"City Taxpayer's" effusion m your Saturday issue, like most of the attacks on the Givil Service, was obviously the product of a mind clouded by ignorance or prejudice. The suggestion which he apparently applauds is the one to reduce all pensions to £3OO. Permit me to point out to your correspondent that the very small section of the Service at present entitled to pensions exceeding £3OO joined the scheme compuisorily 24 or more years ago, and joined it on certain very definite conditions, entitling them to }i fixed rate of pension after completing 40 years of service. It was just as definite an agreement as that which our thrifty -"City Taxpayer" probably made with his life insurance company, .and I cannot believe that your "astounded correspondent would permit his benefits under th 9 sacrosanct insurance policy to be reduced by one penny. If the Government forces such a reduction i" pensions it will be nothing less than legalised repudiation, and quite as indefensible in principle as anything Mr Lang has perpetrated in New South Wales. Perhaps it is news to your correspondent that 83 per cent, of the superannuation funds are contributed bv the Civil Service, that these funds are subsidised by the Government to the extent of only 17 per cent., and that tlie National Provident Fund (open to the community generally) is based on a Government subsidy of 20 per cent. until last session it was 25 per cent. One might say much in this connex .ion, but it is probably wiser not to encroach too much on your space. But. in the interests of fair play, I hope "City Taxpayer" will ponder these facts, and remember in his indignation against a "fat" salaried Civil Service that 80 per cent, of its members have £271 or less per annum, and only 3 per cent, more than £450. —Yours, etc., CIVIL SERVANT March Btli, 1932.