Bolstering Social Security

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22513, 22 September 1938, Page 10

Bolstering Social Security

In his opening campaign address on Tuesday night the Hon. H. T. Armstrong defended the Government’s social security scheme with some bold but unsupported and highly questionable statements. He declared, for example, that there are “ hundreds of doctors in New Zea- “ land who would willingly co-operate with the “ Government, and who were enthusiastic supporters of the scheme, and. in fact, were “ prime movers in it.” Nothing is publicly known of this alleged opposition to the views officially expressed by the medical profession and' widely reported;' • Readers have an alternative, therefore: 'they may believe that these hundreds of enthusiasts and prime movers have disclosed their sympathy and lent their support to the Government with the secrecy of conspirators, or they may believe that Mr Armstrong has made the odd mistake of seeing Dr. F. G. McMillan as a host in himself. It is not .a perplexing choice. But Mr Armstrong was perhaps induced to this feat of multiplication by his argument from the British health insurance scheme, in which, he, said, it had been frequently prophesied that the medical professiorf would /not co-operate, whereas, in fact, it had been “warmly welcomed.” * This is an interesting analogy, and it obscures only two'facts. But they are two that expose it ,as false, as soon as they are produced. The British scheme does not more than slightly resemble the New Zealand scheme of universal, free general practitioner service; and the New Zealand public has been impressed, not by rumour or prophecy of the medical profession’s refusing to co-operate, but by the profession s plain statement of the case against the enactment and of the case against a ‘ Government which proceeded without seeking effective .cooperation. Nobody, perhaps, imagines that the doctors would refuse -to accept the law and would try to defeat it by a “strike” against it. But Mr Armstrong’s suggestion that medical objection to the scheme is no more to be regarded than it was in England, because it is unreal here as it was- there, is a false and dangerous one. Equally false and dangerous is the suggestion by which he sought to strengthen it—that the views of the profession have, been-misrepresented by* “wicked propaganda.” The truth is that those views have been presented to .the Government and the public alike by the official voice of the profession. It'-is, again, “wicked propaganda,” in Mr Armstrong’s opinion, that discovers in the Social Security Act anything but benefits for doctors, hospitals, and friendly societies. The report of the Parliamentary committee indicates, for instance, that private hospitals will benefit conspicuously, in many towns, by being closed down. The Taranaki Hospital Board has estimated that .it will benefit by assuming the obligation of £102,500 of capital expenditure and will have to pass on the benefit of a 42 per cent, increase in rates. The medical ■ profession- has shown how it estimates both the benefits to itself and the benefits to the*community. The friendly societies have denied the Prime Minister’s claim that he had their full support. If propaganda is the word for the use of specious argument and distorted fact in pleading a case, then propaganda is the word for the Minister’s piece of pleading; and the adjective to fit the word need not be sought very far. '