NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19086, 3 August 1925, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

CONTRIBUTING PENSIONS. The cost of the uew pensions scheme in Britain is to be borne by the prospective boneficiaries, by tho industries employing them, and by the State. Provisional proposals have been made by the Minister for Pensions for the adoption of tho contributory system in New Zealand. Discussing tho question recently, the Times remarked. that the principle is obviously calculated to promote thrift, foresight and self-help. It should be a stimulus to further efforts to secure a competency at an ago when, as tho actuarial tables show, ft considerable span of life remains. Age will thereby be made heartier, healthier, and happier. Just because men are called upon to contribute to this provision, they will draw the benefits not only as a statutory but as an economic right. That, of course, is precisely the difference between a dole and a due. The-States dees not figure as an all-supplying providence, but as an organiser and helper, enabling all together to do for each far better, than one could do for himself. Individual sclf-respect is not only safeguarded but heightened. The influence that confidence in himself and in his future has upon a man is subtle but stroug; it is calculated to produce permanent results on outlook and character. Tho removal, even tho substantial mitigation, of tho fear of dependence in old age or of the utter impoverishment of widow or orphan child, by means which a man himself makes possible, not only lifts a cloud from life's horizon, but braces the spirit for tho intervening journey. LUXURY OR NECESSITY. American trade associations have re- | cently directed their attention to tho growing practice of consumers buying a variety of articles on the instalment plan, the contention being that this system is partially responsible for a slackened demand for certain stable commodities. Viewed from tho standpoint of economic fundamentals, tho claim that tho amounts paid at regular periods for goods that have reached the ultimate consumer limit the general purchasing power, and thus diminish productive industry and trade, docs not appear to bo well founded. The manufacture of tho articles bought on the instalment plan gives employment to skilled labour, and tho wages paid quickly find their way into tho channels of general trade in payment for food, clothing and other necessities. If tho accepted doctrine that tho total volume of a country's trado is limited by the consumer's ability to buy is sound, it would seem manifest that the aggregate of sales must bo practically the .same, whether tho money goes for shoes, clothes, radios, furniture, or pianos. Somo industries and some merchants may suffer from a diversion of tho public's spendings into particular channels, but others profit, and tho not result is that no matter what goods are bought labour and capital are equally employed in their production and distribution. The attempt to draw a hard and fast line between luxuries and useful goods has novor succeeded, for tho reason that what some persons may regard as a luxury, others consider necessary to their pleasure or comfort. It may be that tho encouragement to overbuying through deferred payments may lead to unwise expenditure, but that is a matter for individual decision that can only be prevented by lessons in the hard school of experience. PRICES UNDER SOCIALISM. An illustration of the incurable vagueness about practical problems which marks even the best of socialist literature is given by the Weekly Westminster in reviewing an English translation of Karl Kautsky's "Labour Revolution." The author is described as one of the ablest, one of the most reasonable, and one of tho most thoughtful of modern German socialists; ho is frco from tho more childish crudities of tho socialist theory as it is presented by its popular advocates. Kausky has shown how, under the existing system, tho rise and fall of prices govern production, and how trado oscillates between high prices on tho one hand and unemplopment on tho other, says tho review. All this, ho tells us, is to come to an end under Socialism. But if prices are to be fixed and stable, who is to fix them? Who is to determine how much of any commodity is to bo produced when tho riso and fall of prices no longor govern production ? Hero is Ids an-swer:-—"The whole bo'dy of consumers, in conjunction with tho producers of every branch of production, would determine tho scalo of production and tho level of prices on tho basis of their knowledge of tho economic conditions." Literally, that is tho whole answer! Does it mean anything at all? How is "tho wholo body of consumers" to act? In what public place will it hold its momentous meeting with " tho producers of every branch of production?" And how is "their knowledge of tho economic conditions" to be tested or expressed? Yet this farrago of nonsense comes at tho end of n quite sound aid reasonable argument about the utility of money in capitalist society and tho necessity of continuing it under Socialism. It comes after a proof that every Socialist romedy hitherto proposed for fluctuating prices and for money power would lead to chaos. And this sentence of impenetrable fog is tho conclusion of the wholo matterj