BEVERIDGE PLAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 January 1943, Page 3

BEVERIDGE PLAN

DEFENDED VIGOROUSLY BY ITS AUTHOR DANGER OF DEMORALISATION / RIDICULED, THE ATTITUDE OF BANKERS. I (Special P.A. Correspondent.) LONDON, January 20. Parliament will be a great centre of attraction when the Beveridge plan is debated. Meanwhile ,the main arguments of its opponents have been that' social security will demoralise the people and prevent their being enterprising and adventurous. Sir William Beveridge, in a speech at Plymouth, rounded oi» these critics, declaring that they were defeatists, and said "Adventure comes from those who are fed well enough to feel ambition, not from half-starved people.” He asked, "How can one demoralise people by spending money on keeping them well or by making them fit for work by rehabilitation, or by giving them/the assurance that at the end of their lives they will have just enough money to live on without being a burden on their children?” .It is interesting that Sir Robert Barclay, chairman of the District Bank, is so far the only banker who supports the Beveridge plan. He says that the cost of the plan would not really prove as heavy as might appear on the surface, since to a large extent the nation is already carrying the burden through the present social services. He suggests that it is a case of rationalising a financial burden already existing. The “Manchester Guardian” observed recently that “a tide of criticism, both reasoned and superstitious, is again rising against the banks.” It is not surprising, therefore, that at annual meetings of the banks, the chairmen have been delivering broadsides against this criticism. Mr Rupert Beckett, of the Westminster Bank,, states that nationalisation of the banks would make the service neither cheaper nor more efficient, but would destroy its flexibility and thus damage trade. He declares that banking is hot a monopoly, but a highly competitive business. Dealing with the resentment shown to the banks by exalted clerics, he suggests that their advocacy of nationalisation springs “from political prejudice, incapable of coherent explanation.”