TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, 21st MAY, 1941. COST AND BENEFIT.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4428, 21 May 1941, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, 21st MAY, 1941. COST AND BENEFIT.

A STUDY of the Government’s social security scheme resolves itself to the practical consideration of cost and benefit. In its last accounting the scheme cost the country £11,367,117. and, on the side of benefits, it was shown that £9,337,243 was distributed in the form of what could be described as pensions. Hospital benefits absorbed £1,056,699, and administration expenses accounted for £449,274, leaving a balance of £523,901 to carry forward. That, in brief, wias the accounting for the year ended on 31st March, 1940. The figures are interesting, especially when considered in relation to the Government’s manifesto issued on the eve of the genera] elections of 1938. “ By social security there will be removed the paralysing fear of want and distress of our average responsible citizen when he contemplates how he will fare when age, sickness, accident, or unemployment will prevent him from earning a living, how he will meet the bills for doctors and hospitals. . . .” The paralysing fear to-day, when cost and benefit are considered by the average responsible citizen, is that cost is the one definite feature of the scheme, and that benefit is abstract and uncertain. Te Alwamutu is, no doubt, an average borough with the average responsible citizens which the Government contemplated in its promulgation of this scheme. What is the cost to Te Awamutu ? It is a question in which reply can only be estimated, but in the long winter evenings by the fireside the average citizen can find information in calculating the answer. Within this borough the cost is not less than £30,000 per annum. A simple calculation may be made from the fact that there are over 1000 homes in the borough with incomes ranging from £lOOO to £lOO per annum, and a social security tax of ten per cent on the aggregate of income will yield at least £30,000 per annum to this theoretic scheme of benefits which the Government has propounded. Carried further into the district —embracing the three southern ridings of Waipa county and the two northern ridings of Otorohanga county —and the calculation of district cost may well reach the £lOO,OOO a year level. A calculation of the district costs is, to say the least, informative and well worth while; and, on top of that, a hospital rating levy of £BOOO per annum is another positive feature of this grandiose scheme of caring for the health and well-being of the average citizen. In the 1938 election manifesto the Government said: “ One man’s costs are another man’s income.” This seems strangely fitting to the costs of the social security scheme and the whole incidence of the hospitals service in this country’. Having paid the costs of social security, the average citizen feels entitled to look for the benefits, and as health services are fundamental in the interpretation of social security the benefits may well be first of all sought in that direction. The average citizen has discovered that although he pays dearly for the Government’s social security scheme hospitals rating has not been eased; on the contrary, it has steadily increased. Moreover, the average citizen who has the misfortune of requiring hospital service is subjected to a direct claim for the service he has received. In short, he is called upon to pay for what he has already paid—the costs have multiplied and the benefits are not within his reach. Therefore, the average citizen is entitled to ask how long this state of things can be permitted to continue If, in this district, something like £lOO,OOO per annum is being taken from the public income, then is it not timely that the people of this district should demand the provision of adequate hospital facilities within their reach, and have those facilities kept available to them Having paid the costs, they can surely be entitled to expect some better measure of the benefits than they now receive.