STATE HEALTH SCHEME

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22182, 27 August 1937, Page 7

STATE HEALTH SCHEME

TO THE EDITOB OF THI PRESS. Sir,—When Labour put a national health and superannuation scheme in its election platform the leaders must have had some definite ideas on what they proposed to do. Yet we still have to put up with the sort of nonsense talked by Mr C. Morgan Williams at Geraldine the other night. If the Government wants to know what the public are willing to pay, it can find all that out the existing sick benefit and provident organisations. Aft* Williams cannot see where the money is to come from, except by taxation, and he expects that some in the Government will get headaches in deciding how much taxation the public will stand. This is not to be wondered at. In looking through Mr Savage's "The Case for Labour." published before the election, I find the following remarks:—

"Goods and services should be the basis of the money system, and stabilisation, with control by a national credit authority, should be the policy to be administered."

"The use of the public credit should be controlled by a national credit authority, whose duty it would be to provide the credits authorised by Parliament, and to administer the money system on a properly stabilised basis." "Increased and inequitable forms of taxation have reached breaking point. The Unemployment Act, with its inequitable taxes upon the poor, in particular, is an outstanding example. . . .

The sales tax, which is also a levy upcn the poor, without any consideration for income received, cannot be defended on any grounds." "Able-bodied citizens below the age of, say. 60 years, should be prepared, with the aid of science, to accept the responsibility of providing everj'thing that goes to make life worth living for all."

"Wealth is already produced in sufficient quantities to provide for such

a policy; and increasing production should mean increasing standards of life. ... If more production is necessary to accomplish this, men should not be wasting their lives on relief work."

"The money system should be based in goods and services. This would enable payment, from the public credit, to be made to farmers and others in equitable relationship to services rendered, and without increasing taxation." The above are salient points which I would commend to Mr Williams for ?tudy. Either he should repudiate Mr Savage as his leader or Mr Savage should repudiate the views of Mr Williams as representing a Government returned with . a mandate to do the things I have quoted above. Seeing that the Government now has the power, by its amendment of the Reserve Bank Act, to do what it wants without increasing taxation. there should be no further delay. However, the public are not becoming restless becaure of the delay but it is just as well that the Government should be told plainly that anything less than it promised will be regarded as a distinct breach of BRAy August 23, 1037.