BRITISH PROPOSALS

Grey River Argus, 22 January 1943, Page 1

BRITISH PROPOSALS

REPLY TO CRITICS. ' (Special to N.Z. Press Assn) LONDON, Jan. 20. Parliament will be the centre of great attraction when the Beveridge plan is debated. The main arguments of the opponents of the plan have been that social security will demoralise the people and prevent their being enterprising and * adventurous. Sir A. Beveridge, in a speech at Plymouth, rounded on those critics, declaring them to be “defeatists." He added: Adventure comes from those who ale fed well enough to feel amh'tion, not from those who are halfstarved. How can one demoralist a. people by spending money in keeping them well, or by making them lit for work, by rehabilitation, or by giving them an assurance that at the end of their lives they will nave just enough money to live on without burdening their children? It is interesting that Sir Robert Barclay (Chairman of the District Bank)'is so far the only banker to support the Beveridge Plan. He considers the plan would not really prove So heavy as may appear on the surface, since to a large extent the nation is already carrying a burden through the present social services. He suggests it is a case of rationalising the financial burden already existing. The “Mt iichester Guardian” observed recently: “The tide of criticism. both reasoned.and superstitious, is once again rising against the ban ks.” At the banks’ annual meetings the chairmen have been deliverisg themselves 01’ broadsides against this criticism. Mr. Rupert Beckett, of the Westminster Bank, states that nationalisation of the banks would make the service neither cheaper nor more efficient, but. destroy flexibility, thus damaging trade. He declared banning was not a monopoly, but a highlycompetitive business. Dealing with the resentment shown to banks' by “exalted clerics,” tie suggests that their advocacy of na-. tidnaiisation springs from political prejudice incapable' of coherent explanation. SYDNEY, Jan. 11. “Harley Street-ism is iinishel” is the pith of crit’cism of the medical profession, by Dr. E. 8.. Layton, senior throat and ear surgeon al Guys Hospital, London, in a lecture on tne Beveridge Report, published in “The Lancet.” Marley Street-ism, under which doctors spent: one-third of their, lives working for nothing, and recouping themselves in the remaining two-thirds from tin- pockets of tne wealthy, lias had its day,” he says. “The system worked well when consultants were few and the wealthy were many, but it has steadily been breaking down as an increasing number of doctors were trying to get larger incomes from a diminishing proportion of the population. This has had a bad effect upon the practice, teaching and conduct of medicine.”