PENSIONS FOR ALL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4802, 26 June 1939, Page 7

PENSIONS FOR ALL

PLAN FOLLOWS PLAN. \ THE DOWNEY PROPOSALS. A few years ago the United States was swept by the “Townsend Plan,” says the Manchester Guardian. An elderly Californian physician, Dr. Francis Townsend attracted millions of followers by his demand that the Government should pay £4O each month as a pension to everyone who reached the age of sixty. Although less is heard of the Townsend Plan nowadays, it has not been forgotten. It still commands masses of followers, and it has played an important part in elections in Texas, Idaho, Florida, Oregon, and Maine. From California, where the Townsend Plan started, there has come a successor to it that seems even more serious in its immediate threat. In a “primary election” to -choose the Democratic candidates for the national election, Mr. Sheridan Downey won an astonishing victory over the retiring senator, Mr. McAdoo, who has the support of President Roosevelt and the Democratic political organisation in California. Mr. Downey, much younger and comparatively inexperienced, was handicapped by lack of funds and by the opposition not only of Conservatives but of mild Liberals. Nevertheless, he won the nomination easily, his platform being the simple proposal to pay everyone on reaching the age of fifty a weekly pension of £6.

Payments Earlier.

Though he promises less money than did the Townsend Plan, he begins payments ten years earlier, and thus appeals to a vastly larger group cf potential beneficiaries. Mr. Downey’s has another feature familiar in curency heresies. His pensions would be payable in special warrants isued by the State of California and acceptable as currency within its borders. Each of these notes in circulation would be good for only seven days, and could then be renewed for another week only by attaching to its face a stamp worth 2 per cent, of itc value, these stamps to be bought with United States currency. The special scrip would be cancelled at the end of the year, after stamps worth 104 per cent, of its value has been attached to it. That is to say, these pensions for the elderly would be paid for out of a tax on currency amounting to 2 per cent, a week. If this scheme were put into effect it would cost Californians several hundred million dollars annually. Its supporters argue that with depreciating currency in their hands people would spend their money as quickly as possible so as not to be caught with any of it in their possession on Thursday night of each week, at which time the stamps must be affixed. And spending would bring prosperity!

Economists Condemn It.

American economists, however, are unanimous in saying tht the scheme is unworkable and would cause the bankruptcy of the State of California. Their forebodings may soon be tested. (The plan was defeated at the last election). So strong is the passion for glowing schemes that last summer fifteen pension plans were put forward. The E6-a-week scheme had over 800,000 signatures. California will have their chance to try its “short cut to Utopia,” as President Roosevelt has called it; Alberta will be put in the shade. The President has taken it philosophically. He has recalled a conversation with Lord Bryce many years ago, when that distinguished student of Constitutions suggested that in some respects the American was superior to the British. One of its advantages he saw is the right of one or more States to experiment with a scheme which most people might regard as unsound financially. Bryce was speaking as a believer in democracy, and as believers in democracy we have no right to he over-censorious. The Californians prescribe—and take —their own medicine. We can only congratulate ourselves that our own Utopians are more modest.