THE BEVERIDGE PLAN
Sta,—Referring to the Beveridge Report, The Times has said it shows how the poor need not always be with us, but the state of mind of the gentleman who wrote to The Tones and whose latter " Janus " quotes, will, I am afraid, always be with us. The Mr. Oswald Falk of the period no doubt greeted the establishment of the Police Force in similar language—" Destroying the spirit of adventure and initiative, aiming a blow at the heart of the nation with a seductive opiate, &c., &c." The dreary old platitudes, almost too old to be ghosts, are always mobilised to hinder steps in human progress. An interesting point to notice is that people who are so hostile to any form of protection for the common folk are usually entrenched in an economic security that is only made possible by the high degree of organisation in which they live.
What the Beveridge Report suggests should be done by the State has been done for years by many private businesses. In all cases the results have been highly successful; the businesses have prospered because they have been served by efficient and satisfied employees. Why should not the Beveridge scheme be attended by the same result, and produce a population of efficient, self-respecting citizens? The success or failure of any form of government is always indicated by its lowest, not its highest, grade of society. The Beveridge Report shows how Democracy can justify its name, by-pass Socialism and Communism, and arrive at the goal all sound peoples are striving for with the maximum of freedom and individuality that can be expected in a modern organised State.—Yours truly, FREDERICK WILLIS. 4o Wockland Avenue, Guildford, Surrey.
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