WELFARE STATE

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27670, 28 May 1955, Page 3

WELFARE STATE

“HERE TO STAY IN NEW ZEALAND”

ADDRESS BY MR J. T.

WATTS (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 27. “The welfare State is an accomplished fact in New Zealand and it is here to stay,” the Minister of Finance (Mr J. T. Watts) told members of the Wellington branch of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand. Mr Watts defined the welfare State as one in which the Government had a major concern for the material and mental well-being of its people. Inside such countries, he said, the difference between political parties was one rather of emphasis and weight to different aspects of the State’s activities. Some Governments liked to interfere directly, he said. Others, such as the present Government of New Zealand, preferred to create general conditions in which the people were able to do as much for themselves as possible. The emphasis was on full employment, free and compulsory education, freely available health services, and the redistribution of income to the aged, sick, widowed, and mothers, said Mr Watts. The main advantage of the welfare State was that it provided the physical conditions in which each citizen had the opportunity of using his or her capacities, he said. It gave to the great mass of people equal opportunities. Mr Watts said one of the great advantages of modem social and economic thinking was that no-one capable of work need be without a position. At the end of last January, there were 46 persons unemployed in New Zealand, while 27,000 jobs were waiting for people to fill them. “Perhaps we erred in making full employment over-full employment,” he added. There was a tendency among a section of the people to regard work as a rather unnecessary ill, instead of a privilege, said Mr Watts. One of the facts continually overlooked by critics of the welfare State was that money spent by beneficiaries was a powerful stimulus to trade. About £70,000,000 a year from social security found its way quickly into the shops,. Mr Watts said.