THE OTAHO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1935. THREE PLANKS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22723, 8 November 1935, Page 10

THE OTAHO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1935. THREE PLANKS

The Labour candidate for Dunedin West, Dr D. G. M'Millan, sayfe that he is fighting this election on three planks—the introduction of a national superannuation scheme, the establishment of a national health service, and the curifag of unemployment. Necessarily, however, he is in complete accord with the framers of his party’s policy on all other points as well, including the scheme for guaranteeing prices for agricultural products and the method by which the whole of Labour’s programme is to be financed. He admits that it will cost money to give effect to Labour’s plans for improving social conditions, and it may be inferred that he sees eye to eye with Mr Savage on the question of the means to be'employed to provide a Labour Government with an adequate money, service. It is necessary to emphasise this issue, the provision of such services as those in which Dr M'Millan is especially interested mtist depend on the country’s capacity to pay for them, while the “ curing ” of unemployment presupposes the solution of a host of related problems. It should be noted also that the Government itself is not disinterested in the proposals that constitute Dr McMillan’s three main planks. National superannuation and health insurance are subjects which have already been the subject of investigation, and on which, indeed, an exhaustive report was recently presented by a special committee. That committee, dealing sympathetically with both proposals, considered that a pensions scheme to cover all persons between the ages of 16 and 64, and to provide such benefits as superannuation, widows’ pensions, orphans’ allowances and allowances for sickness, invalidity and for children during the father’s incapacity would require a minimum State subsidy, payable in perpetuity, of £1,466,000. Dr McMillan appears to be in agreement with the committee in the matter of cost. But, whereas he says that Labour will introduce a pensions scheme, apparently regardless of whether or not the cost can be borne

by the State at this juncture, the Government says such a scheme will be introduced as soon as financial conditions permit, pledging itself in the meantime to investigate ways and means more thoroughly. The question of compulsory health insurance is similarly an issue concerning which there is no disagreement in principle. Labour says positively that it will establish a national health service; the Government states that it will do this as soon as the country can afford it. But the Government’s immediate concern is for the maintenance of budgetary stability, a consideration which is dismissed by the Labour Party with a characteristic money-is-no-object gesture. The same refusal to face realities is to be remarked in the confident assertion that Labour will cure unemployment. The British Labour Party set out to do that in 1929 and failed dismally. Every Government in the world has had the same disheartening experience. In no country has recovery in trade and industry been matched by a proportionate decrease in unemployment. The Economic Intelligence Service of the League of Nations states, in its most recent world economic survey, that “it is a disconcerting fact that, after almost two years of recovery in many countries, world unemployment is still more than twice as great as in 1929.” The magnitude of the problem is noted in these terms: “ Public opinion in every country shares the anxiety of its leaders, and it is not surprising to find, therefore, that discussions of unemployment and efforts to relieve it occupy a prominent place in the activities of all Governments at the present time. Unemployment is from many points of view the heart of the economic problem. Measures to promote recovery from the depression are judged primarily by their success or failure in reducing unemployment.” There is the crux of the matter. The Government has failed to banish unemployment, but it • has succeeded in reducing it. It offers a hopeful approach for the future—an approach which differs very little from that proposed by Labour and the Democrats insofar as actual relief measures arc concerned. But, because it knows that the ramifications of the problem, are world-wide, it does not offer to perform the impossible.