LIBERTY IN A CHANGING WORLD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 463, 7 May 1948, Page 18

LIBERTY IN A CHANGING WORLD

Full Text of Lord Beveridge’s National Broadcast

EARLY 150 years ago, the. poet Wordsworth wrote: We must be free or die who speak the ' tongue That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold Which Milton held. You who are listening and I who am talking alike use Shakespeare’s tongue as our birthright. Let us think to-night of what we mean by the liberty which alone for all of us makes life seem worth living. There are some things about which there is no room for debate. We should all agree that there are essential citizen liberties, without which we are not free at all. These include the personal liber-ties-freedom of worship and conscience, freedom of speech, writing, study and teaching, freedom of spending a personal income, or at least as much as the taxcollector leaves to us. They include certain political liberties, in particular freedom to associate with others for

public purposes-to form trade unions, friendly societies, political parties and so on. All this can be accepted without discussion. There are other points well worth discussion, because in regard to them there have been differences of view and a notable development of thought since 150 years ago. Like all vital ideas, this idea of liberty changes and develops with changing circumstances. It is dynamic, not static. When Wordsworth wrote, and for one or two generations after, liberty in Britain meant, in the main, freedom from the arbitrary power of autocratic Government. Defence of liberty meant, on the "one hand, restricting the sphere of Government, and, on the other hand, replacing autocracy by democracy, so as to prevent arbitrary use of) power. To-day for us in Britain, as I am sure for you in New Zealand, the idea of liberty has grown. It means not simply

freedom from the arbitrary power of governments, it includes two other things as well: freedom from economic servitude, and freedom from arbitrary power in any form. A _ starving man is not a free man, because, until he is fed, he cannot think about anything except how to feed himself; he is the slave of his physical needs, reduced from a man to an" animal. Again, a man who dare not speak his mind,

or resent what he feels to be thjustice from ‘an employer or a foreman, lest this should condemn him to life-long unemployment is not free. Security against want and secyrity against chronic unemployment are essential elements in British liberty, as we understand it to-day.

Security against want is the aim of the National Insurance legislation which we have put through in Britain in the last three years, giving substantial effect to the Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services which I made to the British Government in 1942-the so-

called Beveridge Report. The principle | of this Report is that every person who works while he can and contributes from his earnings, when, through sickness, accident, unemployment, old age or any other cause beyond his control, he cannot work and earn, shall receive as of right an income sufficient to buy all the necessities of life for himself and his family. . Security against chronic unemployment is the aim of the policy of full employment accepted by our Coalition" Government of all parties in 1944. Social security and full employment are essential elements in British liberty, as we understand it to-day. There are two more points to make about each of them. First, each of them involves an addition to the activities of the State. One cannot have Social Security for allfreedom from want-without use of the compulsory powers of the State. One cannot be sure of full employment except through the action of the State. Full) employment. means that there should at all times be at least as many jobs of work with pay waiting to be done, as there.are men to do those jobs. I have no time to-night to go into diffi- cult economic problems as to just how this can be secured. But in general terms, maintaining employment means maintaining spending to get things done or made; only the State can make sure that enough is spent. State action for social security and full employment is a necessary means to ensure liberty in its full modern sense. We have long got past the stage of thinking that every extension of State activity means a diminution of individual liberty. But though the State must do more things than in the past, it must never attempt to do everything; this is the second of my two points and the more important. The State must leaye to the individual responsibility for planning his own life and incentive to make the best of it. When I was in the United States in 1943, explaining the Beveridge Report, I found myself often having to make it clear that the Report was not a device for enabling the whole British nation to retire from work on life pensions, to be provided at need by LendLease. Of course, it was nothing of the sort. No one could get any of the benefits of the scheme unless he worked while he could. Social security with us is conditional on fulfilling one’s responsibilities. Moreover, it leaves a great deal to be done by the individual for himself. Deliberate Minimum Under the British scheme, the income provided for old age or sickness or unemployment is designed to secure the necessaries of life, a minimum for subsistence. But it is deliberately ‘kept down to that minimum. Our many benefits in Britain are® lower than yours in New Zealand, Both absolutely and in relation to wages. We think it right to tax people-take money from them in their youth when they are earning-in order to make certain that they can buy | bread and the other absolute necessaries of life when they are old and cannot earn. But, above that minimum for necessaries at all times, we think that the individual should, have the responsibility of planning his own life, of éaving more for his old age voluntarily if (continued on next page)