BOLD N.Z. BID

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22242, 30 January 1947, Page 5

BOLD N.Z. BID

SOCIAL SECURITY AMERICAN’S VIEW WORLD NOTICE URGED RECONCILING EXTREMES MONTREAL, Jan. 28. "As in Czechoslovakia, we found in operation in New Zealand a bold experiment in social patterns. New Zealand, though permitting no small degree of private enterprise, has given the highest priority to security for all its people in the way of housing, health, maternity and old age.” The foregoing comment says the New York correspondent of the American Associated Press, is given in a report “one world revisited,” presented by the well-known radio author, Mr. Norman Corwin, who made a world flight under the auspices of the Willkie Memorial and the Common Council for American Unity. “The Government housing is the best of its type I have seen anywhere in that it accommodates a high degree of individualism, looks to beauty and comfort and inspires pride of community,” continues Mr Corwin. "There are not a few in New Zealand who regard the Government's programme as a mixed blessing, but in die week of my stay there were exactly 138 unemployed of the national population of 1.750,000. The Ministry of Labour explained almost apologetically that some the the 138 were in regions remote from employment opportunities and others were physically handicapped. State Health Service “Among New Zealand’s other distinctions is the [act that it enjoys the world’s lowest infantile mortality and highest life expectancy rates. I interviewed medical men and found most of them were against the Government's health plan for two reasons: first they or their secretaries are obliged to fill in a form for each patient, which they regard as annoying red tape; secondly, some patients come running to them with the slightest ailment. “On the other hand physicians who upport t lie plan argued that it is a good thing that patients come running with the slightest ailment, because thus maladies can be caught and remedied before they become serious. They say doctors’ incomes have increased because everybody now can afford to have medical attention and bad debts have been eliminated. As for red tape, they say that’s just too bad. but the nation's health is worth the annoyance. Racial Equality “In few places throughout the worid is the principle of racial equality so firmly established and honoured in observance as New Zealand. “New Zealand and Australia were clean, alive, bright countries, whose people seemed ready to take on responsibilities and' contribute to the kind of thinking called for by Mr. Wendell Willkie's one world. “I beieve the western democracies should watch with neighbourly interest and goodwill rather than distrust the social experimentation ol countries like Czechos'ovakia and New Zealand which are trying to reconcile the extremes o£ socialism and private enterprise it their experiments contain anything worthy of emulation by the rest of us, let us take their best features, just as so much of the world outside America benefited from our experiment with independence and democracy after 1776."