FOR WHOSE BENEFIT?

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 32, 6 August 1930, Page 8

FOR WHOSE BENEFIT?

A Dunedin telegram a few days ago drew attention to the fact, ascerj tamed by Mr. Downie Stewart, that Civil servants, though paying superannuation, would not be exempt from the proposed 30s unemployment levy. Apparently some inquiry had been.made based on the idea that Public Service employees who have 'superannuation schemes, and have not generally the same risk of unemployment as other workers, should not be called upon to contribute. If the contribution were, like insurance, based on risk rates and with certain prospects of benefit to all contributors, there -would be some substance in this argument. But the contribution is not so based and the case for exemption of Civil servants is no stronger than that for exempting professional men, employers, and salaried workers generally. This is overlooked, too, by many of those who continue to protest against what'they term the injustice of taking the same levy from the. £4 a week man as from the man with £4000 a year. Actually the same', contribution is not taken, for the wealthy man will contribute much more than the wage-worker to the Government's half of the expenditure. But the injustice argument fails entirely on this ground: that the £4000 a year, man will give his 30s (and more) and have nothing in return. The £4 a week worker will have the prospect of receiving in benefits both his own and the contributions of many others. There is a sound argument for a different system involving. more direct taxation and less dependence on the Consolidated Fund as proposed by the Unemployment Committee; but that argument is that direct payment would promote greater public vigilance in control of the scheme. It does not touch the justice plea which is being so persistently advanced.