The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1938. POLITICS AND SECURITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 206, 1 September 1938, Page 10

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1938. POLITICS AND SECURITY.

For the cauee that lack* anistanee, For the icrong that needs re«,ta£. And the good that tee can do?

It may be good politics, especially in an election year, for a Government to bring down a scheme promising cash and other benefits to a large number of people. It

may be good politics, when the Opposition questions the financial soundness of the scheme, to assert that the Opposition wants to deprive people of the promised "benefits," it to vote against them, fcii't the of whether or not it is good politics is lh-o'ievant. The relevant question is no( whether, if the Labour Government he re-elected, the social security scheme can be launched, but whether, as its cost rises steeply, it fan be carried on. The people who, on April 1 next, begin to pay money into the Social Security Fund will do so on the promise and in the expectation of specific benefits. If the scheme is unsound it will be necessary after a few years to reduce the benefits or ritbe the taxation, or possibly to do both. People Avho had by then contributed (compulsorily) substantial sums would rightly conclude that the Government was breaking its contract, and, beyond a doubt, they would vent their wrath upon that Government.

Mr. Nash last night replied at considerable length to the Opposition criticism of the scheme. To the Opposition's assertion, which is strongly supported by argument, that the country cannot afford the scheme in its present tforai he made the counter-assertion that it can. His supporting argument amounted to this: that in the last 40 years there; has been such an increase in the country's production as to justify the prediction ithat the increase will go on. It is a prediction in which faith is the largest ingredient. Our capacity to go on increasing production may not be in doubt; "dur" capacity to markets for the increased quantities is very much in doub.t, and no one is more aware of it than Mr. Nash. And, even apart from the question of increased production, we have the lesson of experience that the prices of our export commodities fluctuate, sometimes violently, with adverse effects on the national income. The Labour Government, ae a i Government, has known only prosperity, and vobviously its happy experience has coloured \ts view of the future. The bill is based oil this optimism, and in that fact lies its fundamental weakness.