Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1938 PARLIAMENT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 79, 2 March 1938, Page 8

Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1938 PARLIAMENT.

The Government’s definite promise that in the remainder of the session which commenced yesterday the national superannuation and national health insurance legislation would be passed has been materially amended in the light of difficulties which Cabinet has not been able to surmount. It is now the intention of the Government to refer both questions to a special Parliamentary Committee which will sit during the recess. All sections of the community interested in the proposals will be given an opportunity to submit their views, the order of reference, according to the Prime Minister, being wide enough to cover every phase of the problem. Both are questions which demand haste slowly, and the Government has shown prudence in its decision. A parallel with the present position has been drawn from Mr Coates’s experience in 1935. In that year he presented to Parliament'the report of a Committee of Government experts on a compulsory national superannuation and health insurance scheme, but the costs made acceptance so tremendous a problem that the Committee recommended that further evidence be called over a wide sphere from interested parties. A special committee from its own ranks collected evidence upon which the Labour Government’s schemes were to be based, but it is quite obvious that the Ministers have now been presented wi,th diflicutties they are not able to solve. Both questions involve tremendous cost and however great the difficulty of meeting it in prosperous times, in periods of adversity it w r ould undoubtedly become impossible. The British Medical Association, it will be recalled, last year put forward an alternative plan to the Government’s proposal for a “universal general practitioner service,” in which it stressed the point that the public should have the opportunity to weigh _ the cost. A universal practitionei service, it pointed out, would mean an addition to taxation of £3,500,000 a year, equivalent to Td to 8d in the pound on all wages, salaries, or income. Pointing out the burden involved and the fact that there was “nothing in the health condition of the country to indicate a necessity for such speedy adoption of new remedial measures at so great a fiscal cost,” the branch urged a cautious policy. The Government certainly is now more cautious than it previously appeared, and the Special Committee will be entrusted with the task of preparing a report on which to base the legislation promised for next session.

Tlie business of the session will thus be considerably curtailed, and the public must welcome this. Finance was the dominating consideration in the first part and the Government’s reckless spending policy is causing most serious concern. Certainly legislation was passed hastening the Administration on its path towards its goal of Socialism, but apart from the marketing control and the price-fixing measure it did not compare with previous Acts, though the Fair Rents Act is proving most harmful where tenants desire to rent dwelling-houses. The programme of legislation to be enacted before Parliament rises will mainly relate to amendments to land and income tax laws—the comprehensive revision of taxation is also being held over in the meantime —to transport laws, and possibly the important amendments to our educational system which have been promised for some time past may be introduced.