SOCIAL SECURITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 139, 15 June 1939, Page 10

SOCIAL SECURITY.

All are agreed that tlie Social Security Act is a long step towards the goal when poverty and want will be hut a memory. but many are afraid that the co-t to the country, t."1.1.tid0.000 a year. is too great to lie borne at present. The £1.1.000.000 will he distrihnted among tens of thousands of old people, widow*, children, orphan-, invalids. disabled soldiers and others. It will he used to buy goods and services and mwt therefore be a charge on those who by their work, whether of hand or hrain. produce the poods and give their services. or else it must come out of the wages of the machines that do so much to produce the goods. Those workers who. while anxious to give to others social security, object 011 account of the cost. seem to be barking up the wrong tree, for, in addition to the £1.">.000.000. they must find a further .£ 11.000.000 to pay interest on the national debt, more millions to pay interest on local body debts and private debts, and then half their u«-ury bill will l>e met, the other half being dividends paid to owners and shareholder-; in armaments, coal mines, factories, -hipping and a hundred other businesses. It cannot be questioned but that to machines we owe the necessaries and luxuries of our civilisation. These things are distribute<l throir.'h the mechanism of money. We buy tliem witli our incomes. Incomes are derived in the first place from wages or usury. By t;t\i 11 it both we have social security. It is not hard to see which is l>eing taxed unfairlv. C. R. McDOXALD.