A SOCIAL SECURITY SCHEME
SIR,—With reference to your issue of December 24th and the paragraph headed " Social Security—another scheme," I think your summary of the scheme is slightly misleading. You state that " The large assumption is made that other national expenditure could be met out of sur-tax, estate duties and indirect taxation," which gives the impression that only the cost of the scheme itself would be borne by the 7s. income-tax, whereas In fact a 7s. tax would cover not merely the cost of the scheme, of all existing social services including housing subsidies, of the present expenditure on education and £40 millions of additional expenditure under this head, of a free health •service- costing £170 millions, but also Liao millions of interest on the national debt.
With regard to the estimate of E7,000 million- as the national income after the war, although in 5942 there was admittedly no unemployment and many women were employed who would not be earning in time of peaces this is counterbalanced by the fact that the income earned by the four or five million men in the Forces is lower than the majority of them will be earning after the war.
Commenting on the scheme in this week's Economist the writer of the article, by whom the finances of the scheme have been given a searching examination, says, " This is not a proposal for greater expendi- ture ; it is a proposal for a simplification and rationalisation of the scale of taxation and expenditure to which the community is already committed. It is a rearrangement in preparation for a further advance."—Yours 47 Eaton Place, S.W. r.
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