THE FUTURE OF THE AGED
SIR,—Bertrand de Jouvenel in his article on 'The Future of the Aged' deals rather curiously with the economic aspect of the problem.
He states that retirement means an abridgment of income. True, in most cases, it does; but it need not mean an annual attrition of income as has been the case in these days of inflation. With both political parties committed to a policy of full employment, organised labour is able to extract annual wage awards in excess of the increase of productivity. Salaries periodically follow suit. The gap is made good by inflation, which in effect im- poses an insidious capital levy on all those living on 'fixed' incomes, of whom the retired form the largest group. Basic national pensions are grudgingly adjusted from time to time; but there is no com- pensation for those who have providently provided for their retirement by saving during their working life, for the most part when the pound was worth twenty shillings, and repaid in pounds worth less than a third of their original value.
I see no way of dealing with this group short of denying ourselves the expedient of inflation as an easy method for dealing with our economic pro- gress; but if the Government and the industrial organisations concerned were obliged to keep re- tirement pensions in line with the present-day in- comes of those holding the posts previously held by those now retired, a more realistic picture of our economic position would soon emerge, and in- flation would cease to be accepted as a low-priority evil. I begin to wonder if it is seriously regarded as an evil at all, while it allows the Government the use of millions in National Savings Certificates at no real cost at all to the Treasury, because the rate of interest is just about matched by the re- duced value of the savings when they are cashed.
Provided we can keep on an even economic keel, the application of modern production techniques, without any effort on the part of the worker, will enable the national product to grow; but until the public conscience is aroused to the position of the retired, they will get less and less of the national cake while the worker gets more and more—very selfish, but there it is.
HAMISII MaCLAREN
Beechwoods, Summer Lane, Combe Downe, Bath
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