SOCIAL SECURITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 221, 19 September 1938, Page 8

SOCIAL SECURITY.

Mr. Savage says the Government "will stand or fall by his Social Security Act. He is right. Tt will fall by thi<= and other legislation which has increased the staggering load of taxation on the workers and increased the number of civil servants in two years by thousands, apart from school teachers and military unite. The social secumy would lx: all ricrlit if the funds could be drawn down from the moon, but it increases the tax on wages to one shilling in the pound even on the wages of boys and girls of sixteen. What is wanted is free medical and dental treatment for those who cannot afford it. This could be done 1 without increasing the tax on wages. When the Government takes your money for this sort of thing you are lucky if you get half of it back again. The friendly societies are doing excellent work in the field of social security at about a quarter the cost of the Government scheme, and it would have been better to have* helped them widen their organisations than to embark on something which, like the housing of the workers scheme, will prove a ghastly and costly failure. E. STEVENSON.