SOCIAL SECURITY LEVY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 234, 1 September 1938, Page 10

SOCIAL SECURITY LEVY.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —In your issue of last evening there appears a letter signed “Play the Game” in which he says: “After a certain date we will have to go to the Post Office and register and get a paper handed to us asking certain questions which we must answer and we also hare to hand over 5s in return for the said paper and being allowed to register.” For this he blames the present Government. I remember registering quite a while befbre the present Government came into power; only at that time it cost me 7s 6d which was reduced to 5s before the last election for some reason or other. Perhaps it was to catch a few votes, although it did not seem to catch many. Now then (as the Prime Minister says) “Play the Game” must surely have read the proposals put forward" by the B.M.A. and seemingly endorsed by the present party in Opposition which read somewhat as follow : Every person who cannot afford to pay will have free medical attention. That appears to me to mean, before a person can qualify for free medical treatment, he or she has to be put through the third degree which is so degrading and distasteful to “Play the Game” when it is his turn to be put through, but according to him quite alright when applied to others. There is one thing •I' take • very--great exception to. “Play the ' Game” says we will have to register like an Alsatian dog. Why'couldn’t he have mentioned some nobler dog that is more universally liked. “Play the Game” must surely know that. registering at post offices is not' peculiar {o the present Government. —I am, etc., SQUARE DEAL.

The unemployment levy instituted in December, 1930, at the rate of £1 10s per annum, was reduced in the following year to £1 per annum, and not just before the election as stated by our correspondent.