FREE EVERYTHING

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 81, 5 April 1923, Page 6

FREE EVERYTHING

The Easter Labour Conference at Ohristchurch closed with the endorsement of a policy 'of free medical attention and nationalisation of medical and maternity services. It deferred until next year action on a 1 remit for the supply of free meals for children attending State schools; and rejected a proposal for "free communal newspapers, maintained by the- community and democratically controlled." We quote from th© report of the proceedings furnished for general information, for free publicity of them was not sought by the conference, which restricted the admission of reporters to Labour Press representatives. Therefore we are at a loss to know if the conference! considered the financial aspect of the nationalisation of medical and maternity services. They could not be free to the whole of the community unless a sufficient number of medical men and women who would re>quire no remuneration for their services could be found. Of course, they would have to be paid. But how 1 There would be but one way —taxation. Indirectly the recipients of such free medical or ma- v ternity services would contribute, because wherever taxation can be passed on through goods or services it is passed onto the price of clothes, food, and on to professional fees. Doctors do not work for nothing, although cases of their doing so are more numerous than may be popularly supposed, because in keeping the right hand ignorant of what the left hand is doing many of them are exceedingly adept. Even free meals for school children would not be free, because someone-would have to pay. But there is a psychological aspect of a "free everything" policy that so many idealists overlook: What is free is most lightly valued. It is not difficult tfS imagine many people dissatisfied with free medical attention seeking that which carries with it payment of a fee; and easier still to picture dissatisfaction with the quality (no matter how good) and variety of free meals served to State school children.