STATE SUPERANNUATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23112, 10 August 1938, Page 17

STATE SUPERANNUATION

Sir, —Your correspondent, Mr. A. Warburton, compares private and local body superannuation schemes with the Government scheme. 1 should like to point out that the benefits of such schemes are usually contingent on the employee's remaining in the particular employment for the full term. Does Mr. Warburton know what happens if the employee "gets the sack"? Wha't if he is retrenched in another manmade depression such as the last? He might well be glad of 30s a week in that event, and it is surely reasonable to regard payments to the State scheme as a form of insurance—insurance against a poverty-stricken old age. Mr. Warburton states that "if the annuitant cannot prove poverty, he gets nothing." He is apparently forgetting that the proposed payment also includes very substantial health benefits. Are we to conclude that, if the State scheme becomes law, your correspondent will not avail himself of these? Finally, is there no humanity left among the opponents of the Government? Are they incapable of feeling that it is good to give a little to help others? In former days, the Church was able to collect tithes, most of which went to support the Church itself. To-da.v the Government asks for only half this amount, and proposes to use it for the good of the people. It is freely granted that many will never receive back what they pay into this fund. That is to say, they will not receive it as a concrete payment, but they can at least have a very real feeling of charity, in St. Paul's sense of the word. The Mayor of Christchurch described the Government's proposals as "applied Christianity." That is really defence enough. S. E. Kettklwell.