Shaky Security

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22519, 29 September 1938, Page 10

Shaky Security

While members of the Government are telling the electors nothing about the foundations of the Social Security Act but splashing its facade with sentimental colour, Mr S. G. Holland’s emphasis on the economfc realities is welcome and useful. In a speech last night he directed attention to the financial gaps which the Minister for Finance has unsuccessfully attempted to cover up, to the disappointments and delays that supposed beneficiaries are invited to rejoice over, and to the wide sweep of the taxation which is required by the measure. It has still to be realised by the country as a whole that, after excluding £1,610,000 of the estimated costs as unlikely to come to charge at once, and giving no clear reason for this optimistic exclusion, the Minister for Finance still found that existing and proposed taxation left him £ 1,365,000 short of a balance between revenue and expenditure; and it has still lo be realised by the country as a whole that, having just produced a Budget which estimated a fall in revenue, the Minister declared himself confident of covering this deficit from normal increases of revenue. It is, again, not yet realised by many electors that the Minister admitted the certainty of a steady annual increase in the cost of the scheme but refused to admit any need to look more than one year ahead in financing it. Blind optimism has seldom advertised itself more openly. Mr Holland’s figures also exhibit the hidden trap created by the of the present unemployment taxation, and the fund furnished by it, in the social security fund. The residue available for unemployment relief will certainly not meet existing demands, which are unlikely to contract to the measure of available finance. The alternative possibilities are, therefore, either that fresh taxation will be levied for unemployment or that its demands will be met from loan money expended on public works; and the scope of the Government’s public works plans, its promise to continue and expand them, and the increased reliance on loan money indicated in' the Public Works Statement, are all signs that point this way. These are, however, facts and considerations that carry the elector’s thoughts a long way past the nearest questions of personal loss and gain. He may be most likely to travel the full distance in disillusion if he starts with Mr Holland’s simple figures, which remind him, for example, that if he is 20 now he will pay Is in the £ on his . wages for 45 years before he draws his full 30s a week, in 1983. Besides, he will pay his share of whatever further taxation is required to make up the State’s “ contribution”; and he may not be very sorry, after all, if he dies before the glad day. He stands a better than even chance of doing so.