SOCIAL SECURITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1938, Page 6

SOCIAL SECURITY

BURDEN ON THE PEOPLE. MR J. H. IRVING'S COMMENTS. Dealing with the Government s Social Security legislation when he spoke in the Opera House last night, Mr J. H. Irving, National Party candidate for Masterton, said that, based on a national income of £l5O millions, the people would be called on to contribute Is 3d in the pound, but should the national income fall to £75 millions they would have to find'2s 6d in the £. The country could not stand that rash spending. (Applause.) Mr Nash was absolutely wrong when he said that this country could be expected to make the same progress in the next 40 years as it had done in the last. At the election the real issue was not compensatory prices, guaranteed prices, or social security, but as Mr B. Roberts. Labour candidate for Wairarapa, had said in the House “Between Socialism and private enterprise.’’ The Nationalists opposed compulsion in any form. Referring to the financial policy of the Government. Mr Irving criticised the monetary ideas of people who had not studied the problem and whose ideas were now being discredited. The National Party believed that the monetary system of the country should be controlled by some authority other than the Government. There should be close co-operation between the Reserve Bank and the Government, but no domination.