SOCIAL SECURITY AIM

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19700, 4 August 1938, Page 7

SOCIAL SECURITY AIM

PROVISION FOR OLD AGE SCHEME A BEGINNING (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. “Straight away, I say that 30s a week is not enough for any individual to live on, but- it is a substantial start after living on 10s weekly on a relief job somewhere,” said the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, in the final speech of his Canterbury tour at ‘Lyttelton last night. If he did not have to draw the weekly superannuation of 30s he considered he would be fortunate, said the Prime Minister. The sum of £3 weekly for a man and his wife was something in the way of security, while other benefits under the health scheme wdre a substantial beginning. “I think I will live long enough to carry through the major programme outlined by Labour in this country for years past,” continued Mr. Savage. "Having begun the journey, the job becomes easier. "When an Old lady first saw Stephenson’s engine she said: ‘They will never get it to go.’ When it went she said: ‘They will never stop it.’ “They are saying exactly the same thing now. They say it cannot be done and they are putting forward very weak arguments to show that it cannot be done. “We are going ahead to show that it can be done.” If mbre were needed to give everybody a decent standard of living, New Zealand could produce more. The security proposals were receiving criticism now from representatives |of big vested interests, who would not need the benefits in any case.