Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 1938. AN OCCASION FOR TAKING THOUGHT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 May 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 1938. AN OCCASION FOR TAKING THOUGHT.

STATEMENT on national health and superannuation made yesterday by the Dominion President of the /Farmers’ Union (Mr AV. AV. Mulholland) to the Parliamentary Committee which is taking’ evidence on the Government’s proposals deserves the attention of all who wish seriously to examine these proposals and their probable effect on the economy of the Dominion.

The attitude of the Farmers’ Union and its members towards the proposals admittedly is sharpened by a fear that they may have to bear more than their share of the ultimate cost of a scheme which they consider to be financially unsound. As Mr Mulholland pointed out yesterday, some members of the community are in a. position to pass on increased costs and charges, but primary producers, dependent on export markets, are shut off from that measure of relief; In the extent, however, to which the fears of farmers in this matter are justified, the health apd superannuation scheme is capable of operating with detriment to all sections of the community.

The weakness of the Government’s proposals is that Ministers are taking for granted a great progressive increase in the national income, though in all past experience that income has fluctuated heavily. To assume that it must continue to ascend from the highest level it has ever attained surely is to take far too much for granted.

The root question at stake is not whether a national health and superannuation scheme should be established in New- Zealand. It is agreed very generally, almost universally perhaps, that a comprehensive scheme of this nature is highly desirable. Attainment of an objective at least widely approved may in the end be rather delayed than hastened, however, if the scheme is not so designed that it will interlock smoothly with the existing economy of the Dominion. The aim obviously should be to adopt methods and a procedure which will he equitable to all! sections of the community and will not needlessly cheek or discourage industry and production.

With others, the statement submitted by the Farmers’ Union to the Parliamentary Committee has already made it fairly obvious that in these respects the Government’s present proposals might easily be improved upon very considerably.

As yet the health scheme has been outlined only sketchily, though in sweeping strokes, but it evidently needs to be examined carefully in all its details.' Amongst other things careful consideration certainly should be given to. the distribution of hospital costs as between town and country. Generally speaking, the people of this country are well able to pay for the services they require provided arrangements for payment are made in an orderly way, and there can be no excuse for loading one considerable section of the community unjustly in order to benefit another section.

Very important questions of financial and economic stability and of equity are raised also in regard to the national superannuation scheme. The proposals put forward by the Government are so far from providing for a system of national superannuation worthy of the name that there should be no undue reluctance to examine on its merits the alternative suggestion made by the Farmers’ Union. Broadly this suggestion is that the existing old age pensions system should be continued for the time being and used to tide over a period in which contributions to a national superannuation scheme would accumulate. Ultimately the pensions system would be superseded and replaced by a genuinely national and universal .scheme of superannuation, under which benefits would be secured as of right by all contributors. At present there would seem to be poor prospects of inducing the Government to diverge in the slightest degree from the somewhat ill-considered and probably dangerous course to which it has committed itself where a national health service and superannuation are concerned. It is so much the more important that the most should be macle of such opportunities as still remain of examining the Government’s proposals and possible alternatives.