SOCIAL SECURITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26214, 26 July 1946, Page 3

SOCIAL SECURITY

Sir, —It was with considerable interest that I read the letter by Mr J. T. Paul. One cannot help but admire the cleverness of expression. The subtlety with which he associated the opposition to Mr Seddon’s pension scheme with the present Opposition, or National Party, is as clever as it is fallacious. It is the same with his inference that the era of humanitarian legislation began for the world in 1935 with the advent of a Labour Government in New Zealand.

I think it shows a very petty spirit to belittle, as he does, the achievements of the great humanitarians of the past who, as Mr Paul should know, were mainly of the class described in Labour circles as “ Tories.” Even if the results of their efforts may not seem very impressive on our present standards, yet their achievements were vastly greater than those of to-day, considering the callousness and economic ignorance of the people of those times. The admitted advances during the Labour term of office have only been made possible by the slow but steady soefal development of the past. The great social reformers who built up the ideals on which modern society is founded believed, above all, in the' rights and freedom of the individual and In human dignity for all classes. Surely we have seen too many people suffer from the sacrifice of these rights in the sacred name of the State, with its bureaucratic dictatorships, for us to be caught so easily by the Labour baits. Apparently Mr #aul would have us believe that only Labour politicians are interested in the welfare of the people, and would suggest that the National Party would return to the suppression and exploitation of a past age. This appears to be the main Labour warcry for the'coming elections. The National Party of to-day is not composed of the same people as the ” oppressive Tory party ” of yesterday, and even if it were, surely our Labour leaders, with memories of 1914 and 1940, should be the last fo deny the possibility of a genuine change of heart. —I am. etc., July 23. Briton.