PENSIONS FOR ALL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20477, 1 December 1934, Page 36 (Supplement)

PENSIONS FOR ALL.

Universal Superannuation System. LABOUR LEADER’S VISEW. Per Press Association. PALMERSTON N., November 30. During the course of an address tonight the leader of the Opposition, Mr M. J. Savage, advocated the establishment of a universal system of superannuation which would be payable on a basis of invalidity or citizenship at the age of sixty years. In support of such a policy he stated that the modern tendency was to destroy people’s savings or small investments by making it compulsory for thrifty people to use up their savings before becoming eligible for employment. Interest rates had been forced down by Parliament and were likely to continue to fall owing to changing economic conditions, and unless some alternative provision of a national character ■were made the savings of lifetimes would, in a majority of cases, disappear, leaving thousands of thrifty and hardworking people to the mercy of charity. Measured in production, the country was never in a better position than today to insure people against poverty. There could be no better investment, especially for the poorer section of the people, than a universal system of superannuation. If our civilisation was to be saved and extended, the spectacle of comparatively old men doing jobs of third and fourth-class importance for a pittance to save them from starvation had to be brought to an end and the unemployed youth of the Dominion installed into their natural heritage, namely, the right to play constructive parts in building their own country. The present system of unemployment relief was humiliating to a workman, as it was insufficient to enable him to provide for the immediate needs of his dependents or to save anything for the future. It was also uneconomic to the State. The time had come for a reorganisation of the industrial forces in such a way as to provide a place for every able-bodied worker.