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APPENDIX II
Questions Answered
A reply to various criticisms and suggestions
SINCE the foregoing articles appeared in the New Clarion, I have received an enormous amount of correspondence regarding them,
I propose to answer some of the most vital questions here and now.
Private Pension Schemes
Ques.: What would be the position in regard to private pension schemes?
Ans.: The pension scheme proposed is a State scheme, and, therefore, every person within the limits suggested should contribute thereto, whether the person is a contributor to a private pension scheme or not. The pension scheme proposed is not a contributory scheme in the ordinary accepted sense; the contributions from the three units is really a method of raising the money. The mistake in the Unemployment Insurance Scheme of allowing sections to contract out should not be repeated. In other words, the pension scheme should be treated in the same way as workmen's compensation; it should be an over-all scheme. Private schemes should adjust themselves to the National Scheme and not the National Scheme to the private schemes.
Compelling Persons to Leave Industry
Ques.: Can you compel a person to refrain from working?
Ans.: No, but you can decline to pay a pension while a person is working. This is not a means test; it is a question of establishing pension rights.
Qualification for Pension
Ques.: Would you make the receipt of a pension dependent upon an income limit?
Ans.: No. The pension would be received as a right irrespective of personal possessions.
Houses for Pensioners
Ques.: Several correspondents ask how it would be possible to get pensioners to remove to the smaller houses. Would they not prefer to remain in the place where they had always lived?
Ans.: I do not assume for one moment that a house will be built for every pensioner. What I suggest is, that there should be a fairly liberal supply of these small houses, at low rentals, in connection with every housing development. In Durham and in other places where the miners have provided this type of house, with small gardens, no difficulty has been experienced in filling them. As the concept of pensions grows the desire for change on retirement will, I feel, lead to rather a clamour to obtain the smaller houses.
Ques.: How would you adjust the savings on Poor Law as against the National Exchequer, etc., so as to bring your balance sheet into correct relation?
Ans.: No better opportunity presents itself now that the Government has announced its intention of accepting responsibility for the maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed under 65. If this is done, then the necessary national adjustments through the grants system are made comparatively easy.
Amount of Pension
Ques.: Several correspondents ask whether the pension proposed is not too high, especially having regard to the wages paid in the Agricultural and certain other industries?
Ans.: Pensioners in agricultural industries would have to give way, in most cases, for the incoming employees to occupy the houses on the farms. This would mean that they would probably have to pay a higher rent elsewhere. In addition, certain other emoluments would probably be lost.
Again, if during his working life he has received low wages the more difficult it has been for him to put anything by to supplement his pension.
Apart from these reasons, however, there is no earthly reason why an agricultural worker should be treated any differently to an urban worker, especially as the proposal provides that the contributions to maintain the scheme should be the same.
The introduction of an equal pension would probably be the first real act of justice as between the urban and the agricultural worker.
Educational System
Ques.: How would you adapt your educational system to cover the period between 14 and 16 so as to permit of technical instruction preparatory to entering industry?
Ans.: I am a great believer in cultural education, but I have never accepted the view that technical education and cultural education are necessarily in conflict. Therefore, I feel there should be close collaboration under these two heads. An examination is necessary in order to evolve the best method of utilising the last few years at school to the best possible advantage.
Effect of Raising School-Leaving Age
Ques.: Several correspondents have written and attempted to show that the proposed raising of the school-leaving age would only affect the first two years.
Ans.: I do not see how my correspondents arrive at this conclusion—the effect of permanently raising the school-leaving age is to contract the number of persons whom industry must absorb. The contention appears to arise from a misconception.
National Survey Board
Ques.: A large number of correspondents refer to the National Survey Board and ask for information as to its functions.
Ans.: At present there may be a concentration in an industry—such as the great steel consolidation—as the result of which production is really higher than it was before with a less number of units producing and a less number of people employed. Under the present arrangements private employers, with very few exceptions, will not accept any obligation and decline to join with the Trade Unions to adjust the hours of labour. They argue that it is an 8-hour day and make this the principle. The result is that the workpeople displaced by the concentration of production are thrown on the State and/or Local Authorities, which is unfair. Very often this concentration also has the effect of enhancing the earnings of those left in the industry and involves unnecessary overtime, thereby making for an inequitable distribution of the wage income.
It should be the duty of the employers to report these concentrations to the National Survey Board, and if there is a failure to absorb all the workpeople, or, on the other hand, to take adequate steps to deal with displacements, the Board should have the right to step in.
Secondly, when the Government is introducing changes, as in the case of the one delivery per day in the Milk Distributive Industry, the Board should be supplied with the facts and be in the position of securing an adjustment of the labour conditions corresponding to the new regulations, first by agreement with the employers concerned, and failing that, by an order. That is to say, for the first time in this country, a Board would be established to bring labour within the ambit of consideration and adjustment at the same time as the economic adjustments are being made.
The Board would also have under constant review the amount of labour private industry can absorb under given conditions, and in view of the fact that the State is accepting national labour for able-bodied unemployed under 65, and is talking of providing recreation, training, etc., I take the view that the State should consider the question of the provision of public work and the like, and not leave this to sporadic chance. The Board should assist in overcoming the difficulty that has always been prevalent as to the right and the wrong time to promote public works. For instance, if there is an increase in the labour requirements of industry, under an organised scheme with such a Survey Board there could be a slackening off, a kind of hold-over coincident with which the public authorities should be allowed, through their rates, to set aside the money they would otherwise expend on public works and keep it in reserve, thus having ready money available for expenditure as and when the labour requirements of industry declined.
In other words, once established the Board would develop a constant survey of the industrial field, including hours of labour and the flattening out of production. It would have power to require from the Government Departments concerned forecasts of trade, and from public authorities notification of possible developments. The Board would also advise generally, and when necessary advise the Government regarding the making of orders.
One of the first acts of the Board would, of course, be to conduct an analysis of the industrial position under the Pension Scheme with the object of ascertaining who, through the terrible strain of unemployment, etc., had become physically unfit and therefore entitled to exercise their right to invalidity pensions.