NATIONAL SUPERANNUATION FUND

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 145, 22 June 1938, Page 10

NATIONAL SUPERANNUATION FUND

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—There has been quite a lot of discussion on this superannuation subr ject for some time, but it is very difficult to know exactly what the proposals are. They change from day to day. The first committee (Dr. McMillan's) assured a witness that the greater part of the one shilling in the £ levy would be devoted to superannuation (about 9d or lOd), while the remainder would be health insurance. Another committee was set up with a seemingly peculiar order of reference, which appeared to be an assertion that a national superannuation would" be enacted and if anyone had objections he was invited to state them. The handicap of not knowing the exact nature or scope of the proposals, or the financing of them, made this most difficult in practice. At this second committee the Finance Minister appeared to indicate at one point, that the greater part of the shilling would go to health insurance. It seems that even the committee members and Ministers do not know the details. Then the Prime Minister announces that the I scheme is going to give more benefits than was originally proposed. Still we are mystified as no one knows what are the proposals either original or subsequent, so we can only wait and see. However, in a speech at Masterton, the Prime Minister elaborated an eleven-point programme, and the very first point makes clear that the field has been greatly widened by the inclusion of unemployment insurance. It reads: "If you become unemployed, a payment for yourself and your dependants until you regain employment." The original proposal was understood to be for (1) national superannuation, and (2) health insurance all for one shilling in the £ on wages and other income. Then the national aspect was whittled away by the inclusion of a "mean& test." Now the scheme has a third objective by being widened out to include an unemployment insurance. Was this unemployment insurance aspect of the question considered by the actuary (Mr. Maddex) in his report? I do not think so.

One thing is quite obvious and that is,that one shilling in the £ will be utterly inadequate to provide all these services, and the - Consolidated Fund will be called upon annually for an amount, the total of which no one has even ventured to estimate.-

As taxpayers are very interested parties (though probably non-bene-fitting ones) it is only reasonable for. the Prime Minister to give some clear indication of how the various schemes which he designates "social security," are to be financed.—l am, etc., W.H.A.T. [The actuary included £1,500,000 in his calculations for payment of sustenance to unemployed.]