Pensions For All

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 147, 18 March 1937, Page 13

Pensions For All

Sir, —The probable features of the national superannuation scheme as set out by Mr. J. Elliot in Monday’s issue of "The Dominion” give food for very serious thought. "Pensions for all,” as the article is headed, has a very pleasing sound, but when one analyses the position it loses its appeal. I believe the old age pensioners have cost the taxpayers £4,000,000 per annum, and with the increase given by the present Government, together with the disability pensions, the total has been brought up to about £6,000,000. Old age pensioners are only a small percentage of the people over 65 years of age; in fact, pensions apply only to persons who are practically destitute. We all know what the old-age pensioner gets from £6 000,000 taxation; the question is, what would all the old people get £l4 000,000 plus a probable ±<s,oUU,uw from the 1/- in the £1 direct taxation that it is proposed to levy during the rear'’ I would suggest the price of a couple of art union tickets each week If the proposal set out by Mr. Elliot is, in the main, the serious intention ot the Government, one thinks that all the -ood that the Labour Government has done would be offset by such a rotten measure. Such a scheme would undermine all orthodox superannuation tuucls, for the young people would naturally object to entering other pension funds w-hen they would be compelled to pay 1/- m the £1 for the national scheme. How could auy other scheme exist or carry on without voung members? A pension scheme to be worth wane must be adequate, and at least equal to the basic wage. Is it just that a man or woman should be retired from active participation in industrial or copimercial business and made to abandon a normal mode of living to live on a mere , pittance as the proposed scheme sug~6These old people probably _ kept the present legislators during the first twenty rears of their lives without either stmt or question, and probably denied themselves of much to reaj their families. So one thinks that a pension to be just should be based on an average of the earned income during the last five years of the retired person's working life, buck a pension cannot be given from £14,000,000, so if nothing better than the scheme expounded bv Mr. Elliot can be thought of, one thinks that it would be better to leave things as they are. In the proposed national scheme a direct levy pays half and general taxation the rest. I maintain that before a Government is entitled to tax existing industry, for any new scheme or industry that it proposes to start, it must first place in circulation sufficient new credit for the first year's operation. Then it would be entitled to circulate its addition to the credit stream back to the pension fund by taxation for re-issue. Past Governments borrowed money for such purposes. As the present Government has decided against borrowing, its only alternative is costless credit from the Reserve Bank. Bv a coincidence an account of Dr. Townsend’s activities, together with his photograph, appear in the same issue of “The Dominion.” His proposal was to give 200 dollars a month to everyone over 60 years of age, with the condition that the money must be spent within 30 days. Dr. Townsend got 30 days! So one is a little nervous in writing on this subject.—l am, etc., G. H. WILKIN. Wellington. March 16.