The, Beveridge Touch
Lord Beveridge has always had the admirable custom of throwing himself heart and soul into some specific social problem of the day and never letting it drop until he has clarified it and indicated the necessary action. It is very good news indeed that .he has now decided to turn to the study of what has happened in the field of -social security which he himself so brilliantly mapped in his great report of 1943. For the financial problems which have arisen in that field have become a nightmare which must be ended. As Lord Beveridge pointed out all over again in his address to the Council of the Liberal Party last Saturday, at present rates of contribution and payment we can now expect a growing excess of expenditure over income in the National Insurance Fund. As he also pointed out, this state of affairs arises partly from the abandonment by the Coalition Government of 1944 and the Labour Government of 1946 of the contributory principle for old-age pensions recommended in the Beveridge Report. So far the intolerable financial consequences of this situation have been pushed into the background by politicians and public alike. But they are about to assert themselves. The first quinquennial report, called for under the National Insurance Act of 1946, on " rates and amounts of benefit in relation to the circumstances at the time of insured persons in Great Britain " is due next year. What it is bound to show is that existing benefits cannot be met without large resort to general taxation. It is already known that the benefits themselves at this moment are not up to subsistence level. Resort to public assistance grows steadily. The answer to this state of affairs is bound to be painful to uncritical believers in the virtues of the Welfare State and advocates of a shorter working week. But Lord Beveridge has undertaken to give the answer. His courage and his public spirit are clearly undiminished.
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