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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 27

National Insurance

National Insurance.

Here, I may say, I recognise that we ought to thank him sincerely for the effort he has made to solve this problem— (hear); but I wish to find out first what solution he proposes. His solution is that there should be a poll tax on all people between the ages of 16 and 23 or 18 and 23 years; and those between 23 and 48, in order that they may reap the advantages of the system, have also to pay for five or seven years. I want you to know what this money amounts to—what this poll tax which the Major proposes will produce. I find that there are in this Colony about 61,000 people between the ages of 16 and 23. There are really over 62,000 persons; but I have left out, in order that the Major may have the benefit, page 6 those in hospitals, criminals, and others from whom the tax cannot be collected. If you take the average payment to be nearly £6—£5 17s is the sum—the poll tax will produce during the first year £366,000, which is more than double what the property tax yields. Then these payments go on increasing for seven years, because there are about 12,000 people between 16 and 18 years coming in. There are probably more than that; but here we can knock off 2000 or 3000, because the excess of births over deaths is about 13,000 or 14,000 in this Colony. We have also, immigrants coming in, some between these ages; so that, even at the lowest calculation, I believe about 12,000 or 13,000 are coming up each year. But in order to do absolute fairness to Major Atkinson's scheme, I have, as before stated, struck off 3000; so that it cannot be said I am over the mark when I say that, excluding those in the hospitals, lunatic asylums, and gaols, who will not require to pay, there will be at the seven years at least another 10,000 persons between the ages of 16 and 23 years coming in annually. Thus, at the seventh year there will be actually £726,000 coming from this poll tax. But there is to be provision made for the widows and orphans, and consequently persons above 23 years have got to pay two shillings a week each for five years longer in order to provide for these widows and orphans. And those now above 23 and under 48 have to pay from £6 to £8 for five or seven years. Let us again be generous. There are in the Colony 106,000 male persons between the ages of 20 and 45. I am quoting from the census of 1881. Assuming that there are 100,000 males between the ages of 23 and 48; and again, taking the lowest contribution—£6 each—you will have £600,000 contributed by this poll tax during the first year, so that under this scheme the people would be called on to pay into the State Treasury for pauperism £966,000, and the propertied class are paying £156,000. This proposed poll tax will thus produce nearly a million of money during the first year, and if it goes on increasing it will amount in the seventh year to nearly £1,250,000. Why, our customs revenue amounts only to £1,500,000; and this poll tax that the Government are going to give us will put into the State Treasury more than all the other taxes put together—I don't consider railway revenue in the nature of a tax—with the exception of our customs revenue, and it will nearly equal that. Now I assume in this calculation that the immigration will at least equal the deaths. I submit to you that this is a very big scheme, and ask you to notice what this big scheme means. We are to have a fund for the relief of pauperism, which will provide for the giving of 15s a week to sick people, without the attendance of a doctor; and for an annuity of 10s for those over 65. and also for an allowance to widows and orphans. Now, first, I call this taxation on two grounds—because it is a payment in return for services rendered by the State, and it is compulsory. If you join a friendly society or an insurance company. you have not got to pay for sick people. No persons are admitted to a friendly society or an insurance company without undergoing medical examination, and it is only those in good health and who are thrifty that are admitted. But under this system the thrifty are to pay for the unthrifty, and the healthy for the sick. Now I ask you where is the money to come from? It must come either from our savings or our present expenditure—that is, the money must come out of the savings of the people, or else they must lessen their expenditure; and I ask you, is it likely that any unthrifty person will lessen the expenditure of his money merely because the State levies a tax? I would like to know of any instance of a man voluntarily doing anything of the sort. It has been said by Major Atkinson we must not discuss the scheme. He practically says that, because at the meeting at which he spoke after Mr Green he said, "We do not want declamation: show us a better scheme"; and I have heard several people say, "We do not want criticism of this scheme. What is your scheme? "Well, ladies and gentlemen, that puts me in mind of an anecdote. I have known men who have what are termed "fads." If you go to a patent office, why you find half the ideas registered are useless, and yet men have spent an enormous amount of time and labour on them. Well, I knew a man who fancied he could make a flying-machine, and he constructed one on a very elaborate plan, and undertook to demonstrate that he could fly with it. At the trial he turned round and said, "It is all very well for you to criticise, but show me a better machine."— (Laughter.) I say we have a right, in discussing this scheme, to say to Major Atkinson: Pauperism is a very bad thing; it is a terrible evil, and perhaps by discussing the means proposed to meet it, we shall learn, how the happiness of every individual can be secured." This question of poverty has been discussed long before flying-machines, and we are no nearer a solution than before. This scheme of Major Atkinson's is one to stop poverty, but I say it does not strike at the root of poverty at all. Does any man say that giving 15s a week to a sick person will stop poverty, and 10s to a person over 65? We know people have been poor who were never sick, and who never lived till 65 to receive this 10s annuity. I will illustrate what I say. We see in some countries men stricken down yearly with malaria, and quinine becomes of enormous importance to them. They say if they could only get quinine they would get rid of the fever. Major Atkinson's scheme is a quinine scheme. I say the proper scheme is to get rid of the fever, not to give quinine. I would say to the people of a city: Drain your marshes; look after your health, and you ought to have no fever." All that Major Atkinson desires is that the people should give him little bottles of quinine that he may distribute it when they take the chills. Now what is to be done with this vast sum of money? We are told by the Major and his supporters it must be invested in 4 per cents. What does it mean? It has been said in Parliament that if we got, page 7 say, a million a year to be expended on public works, that that would of sufficient for our requirements; the Major does not like to go into the Home market, and he says to the citizens throughout the Colony, I will utilise the money from this poll tax, giving a promise to pay for it into a fund, and go without loans. Now I come to what may be termed the root of this question, and I ask, is it the duty of the State to support the poor? Now I admit at once this is a much debated question. There are some able political economists who say it is not, and some who say it is. As I understand him, Major Atkinson says it is the duty of the State to support the poor. Let us assume that. Let us assume that everyone here grants it is the duty of the thrifty to support the unthrifty, the wise to support the imprudent, the sober to support the drunk; and look what follows. I presume the matter will have to be met by taxation. The four canons of taxation, as prescribed by Adam Smith, must be applied to the poor tax as well as to other things. What is the first? There must be an equality of sacrifice. If, then, there is a duty to support the poor by taxation, the taxation must not be per head, but in accordance with the property a man possesses.— (Applause.) If you admit it is the duty of the State to support the poor, you must necessarily admit that the taxation that is to go for the support of the poor must be a tax not per head, but according to the means of individual citizens. Why, our property-tax payers are only supposed to pay £156,000 a year, while you are to be called upon by this taxation per head to pay nearly a million. Is that fair? I say if you once admit that it is the duty of the State to support the poor, and if you once admit that Smith's canons of taxation are right—viz.. equality of taxation—then the Major's scheme is gone.— (Applause). But if it is said, on the other hand, that it is not the duty of the State to support the poor—supposing you take up that position, then the scheme is equally gone. What is the use of politicians bothering about the question at all? So that I do not care which view you take: if you say it is the duty of the State to support the poor, then it must be the duty of the State to tax equally, according to their means, the citizens for that purpose; but if you say it is not the duty of the State to support the poor, then, of course, there is no need of considering the scheme at all. But now I say further, look at what would be some of the effects of the scheme. And first, I say the main effect of the scheme would be to do that which in his first address Major Atkinson so much deprecated—namely, to direct the attention of the people to the Government for their every want. I say that this is the abiding political sin of Colonial people. Why, we cannot get a bit of a bridge at the North-East Valley built without a formal deputation—— (applause and laughter)—a little bit of a bridge that could be built in a week by the citizens working a day or two. But they got up a deputation: we must have a formal deputation, headed by M.H.R.'s: we can do nothing in this Colony without invoking the aid of the Government. I say that that is the besetting sin of Colonial people, and that if they do not guard against it they will soon lose their independence. What, I ask, should be our duty, living as we do in a freer state than at Home? It should be to do without State interference, except in regard to those things which individuals cannot manage. If we look at what the result has been in the past, we will see that whenever a State tends to interfere with a people in any degree it tends to weaken their individuality — it tends to make them slaves. Major Atkinson says the main aim of a democracy—the sole object of a democracy, as I understood he put it—was to work for the common good. I deny that that is the aim of a democracy. I say the aim of a democracy is to turn out perfect men and perfect women, and I say that any Government that does not aim at turning out perfect men and perfect women is doing an injury to the race, and I say that there can be no such improvement of the race if Government here, there, and everywhere interferes with our social affairs. Why, we must look forward to the time when instead of the Government's functions increasing they must decrease. We have always found in the past that as individual liberty has increased and Government interference decreased, nations have risen in the scale of existence. I ask you, what is the tendency of democracy? At one time it was said that all the world would come to naught if Governments did not have State churches. Is our world coming to naught because the Government does not vote sums for the church in Parliament? I say I look forward to the time when, instead of democracy doing more for the people, a true democracy will do less. I say that I look forward to tne time when even in the matter of education the State will not interfere, but will leave it to the citizens. I think we should look to the State doing as little as possible of what the individual can do. This is most important. I could give illustrations by the hundred of its effects. Take this for example: About a month ago I met with the "Naval Magazine"—a magazine published in London, dealing mainly with nautical affairs. I opened it, ana thought, "Well, one cannot get much, surely, out of this: it deals with warships, seamen, how to have a proper navy—things out of my line"; but in reading it I came across a remarkable thing, and it shows how out of things that seem often out of one's road some facts may be got that are useful. I found that in an essay in it there was this marvellous thing—a thing the writer could not understand. If young people of good parentage were put on a proper training-ship, well fed, well clothed, and well housed, what sort of sailors, it was asked, would they make compared with the fisher lads, who were worse fed, worse housed, and had less training? And what did he say? Why, that a fisher lad, for ability to do seaman's work and for resource in danger, was worth two of the other lads. Providing you give full play to the individual, you will find great advance made. I ask you to inquire of those accustomed to the sea, and page 8 they will tell you that if you take a sailor who has been thoroughly trained in a merchant vessel, and another who has been thoroughly trained as a man-of-war's man, the man who will have most resource in time of danger will be the man who has been trained with less control—the man to whose individual character more scope has been given will turn out a better sailor than one who has always had some quartermaster over him. Then if you wish to take a national test, you will find the same result. Go to the Continent of Europe—to some of the nations where they cannot stir, cannot be married, cannot do anything without the Government interfering with them at every stage of existence, where from the cradle to the grave there is a Government officer looking after them—take one of these men, and take an Englishman—or, better still, because of the greater freedom of the individual—an American, and tee which on a desert island would make the better living first? So it is; you must give scope to the individual, and I believe the true aim of democracy is to make a man feel like a man, and not to bow before those in authority over him. If that is the true aim of a democracy, then I say the less interference of the State with the citizen the better.— (Applause.) Now I say, how will this affect the equal liberty of others? The Mayor gave us an illustration from the keeping of pigs. He said the State now interferes—you are not allowed to keep pigs in a town. That comes within the principle that you are to have liberty in everything, so long as you do not interfere with the liberty of your neighbour. If a man keeps pigs in the city, and causes stench, discomfort, and disease, he is interfering with my liberty. The highest ideal of a State is to prevent interference with liberty; and therefore it is invoking no extraneous aid from the State—it is simply asking the State to protect my liberty in the preservation of health. I will say one word more with reference to the question of equal liberty. I say—for the land problem is closely related to the poverty problem—we must lay down the same rule of equal liberty with reference to land, and if we lay down the same rule we must at once come to this conclusion—that the land is the State's, and that the State should only part with it for the State's benefit. Now I wish to say one or two words in reference to