Thames Star FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 1938. SOCIAL SECURITY SCHEME.

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 20342, 24 June 1938, Page 2

Thames Star

FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 1938. SOCIAL SECURITY SCHEME.

“With malic* toward* non*; with charity for all; with firmne** in the right, a* God gives u* to •*• th* right. I’—Lincoln. 1 ’ —Lincoln.

The picture which Government speakers draw of the social security scheme varies with the type of audience that is being addressed. When the Prime Minister first announced the scheme over the air, the pensions proposals were described as “national superannuation” and the wages tax as a “social security contribution.” The motive behind this method of presentation is obvious. A tax of 1/- in the pound on wages is a heavy burden to all who are on low incomes ; if those who pay it can he persuaded that their shillings are in reality an insurance premium, conferring 1 the right to benefits at a fixed rate, the burden seems less onerous. But the defect of this approach, from the political point of view, is Unit those who already belong to superannuation or health insurance schemes —public servants, employees of certain large firms, and members of Friendly Societies —see no point in paying for benefits they will ever qualify to enjoy and therefore claim exemption. Claimants for exemption were told, a little obliquely it is true, that the “superannuation” benefits were after all only old-age pensions on a more generous scale, that the principle of the scheme was simply that indigent old-age should be a charge on the community, and that the “contributions” were no different from any other form of taxation. The Prime Minister is once more addressing himself to the electorate, and in consequence is reverting to his original method of presenting the scheme. It is, he told a Masterton audience on Saturday, “insurance on a complete scale, for a premium no insurance company in the world can compete with.” There is, of course, no question ns to which method of presentation is the nearer to reality. All that the Go 1 vernment is proposing to do is to increase the scale and the scope of pensions, to institute a national health service, and to increase the wages tax from Sd in the pound to 1/- in the pound. More generous pensions are not superannuation; and. a national health service is not health insurance. The distinction is not a quibble; it is a test of political intelligence. It is possible that many thousands of electors will he in fa’vour of the social security scheme because they believe that the promise of £2/10/a week for a single man of GO is a valid promise and because they believe that payment of the “social security contribution” gives them a title to certain benefits. This Government can promise to pay an oldage pension at the rate of £2/10/J’or a single man while it is in office; it cannot commit future Governments. The man who is now 30 is not buying for himself, by his wages tax payments, the right to receive £2/10/- a week from the State when he is GO. What pension rates are 30 years hence will depend on a variety ol‘ considerations, of which the preelection promises made by a Labour Government- in 1038 will not be the most important.