DOUBTFUL BENEFITS, UNJUST PAYMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 50, 27 August 1938, Page 8

DOUBTFUL BENEFITS, UNJUST PAYMENTS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Your new correspondent "Britons Never Will be Slaves," who made his preliminary bow in your correspondence columns on Wednesday last is "off the wJls" and I would like to help to give him a true perspective of the case. In introducing any great reform in a country some old-established customs, traditions, and conditions almost invariably suffer to some extent, but the consoling fact must be that the new movement does more good than harm and the benefits go to the great majority of the people, as against the few who are inconvenienced and perhaps suffer some loss in the change-over. Your correspondent should not impute that all those who write in support of the security measure have all to gain and

nothing to lose. Such is not the case but a genuine desire to assist those worse off is the main object of the security scheme, and those who support it. Your correspondent makes his position in regard to his ability to pay very cloudy, as he mentions £300 a year and then says his salary has increased considerably since he was married, and states "he is one of the unfortunates who will have to subscribe to two pensions." Most endowment policies have a cash surrender value and if his Is in the £ covers j him for doctor, medicine, hospital, maternity, unemployed, and sick benefits as well as superannuation for himself and his wife, and widow's and children's pension if he should die meantime, why not cash up the policy and invest the proceeds in a motorcar and give his wife and children (if | any) fresh air and knowledge of the country he lives in now that he has such a wonderful opportunity to benefit from the security plan? It seems to me this would be sound common sense. The money he will save by not having to pay into the lodge funds for doctor and medicine will pay for petrol for his weekend run. In quoting what I said in my previous letter he has only quoted part of the statement I made, which, of course—as usually happens—is entirely misleading. He quotes "He ('Equity') is sure that most individuals who subscribe to the security plan over a period of years will receive many times what they pay in" and then he comments, "Is it not obvious from his own words that in this case over a period of years the plan must go bankrupt and. the country with it." Now, what I said was ". . . will receive many times what they pay in from hospital, medical, medicine, and maternity benefits, etc.," which does not mean that they will draw out more actual cash than is put in, but by working on the same basis as the friendly societies have worked the collective security will produce better results than individual effort and as one major sickness or operation will in the present circumstances unbalance a family budget for years, the security plan will avoid this and do no harm to anyone, as the doctors, nurses, and hospital bills will be paid. If he refers to that sixth standard economics he remembers so well, the law of average and the money we will all pay in- disproves conclusively that there is an expectation of getting "something for nothing" in thjs scheme, but just the advantages of collective security, which will answer in a greater degree than ever before the noble aim to retain the precious birthright of British people but in a better and nobler way than has ever been featured by any British community. People will not in future have to starve and go shabby so that they can pay doctors', chemists', and hospital bills. Certainly, it is a wonderful measure of security.—l am, etc., EQUITY.

EQUITY.