The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, January 27, 1919, Page 8

e o i D T e P = e T e R e S B PR How State Succeeds as a Guardian New Zealand Maintains a Department of Public Trust for Handling Estates— Insurance Against Accident, Disease and Poverty The seventh of a series of 10 articles by Mr. ~Mills, well-known writer and lecturer, on “New Zealand Before the War.” BY WALTER THOMAS MILLS ATEVER disputes there may tions on the functions of the fact that the state in New Zea- land has assumed responsibility for the guardianship of the helpless members of the com- ; munity. Private charitable in- stitutions have been made finally responsible to the state for maintaining proper standards and for humane treatment for the young, the diseased, the mentally defective and the aged. Under English law. provisions for the poor were made under the Elizabethan statutes for the avow- ed purpose of protecting the well-to-do against the approachments of “sturdy beggars”—the able- bodied poor. But today throughout the English- speaking world the government assumes responsi- bility in the matter of protecting all the members of society from extréme suffering from whatever . cause. At no point did the Labor party in New Zealand justify its existence more completely than in deal- ing with the state’s responsibility for the helpless members of the community. } Under its leadership there has been provided pensions for young children, together with mothers’ pensions, the purpose of which is to preserve the family and to make the mother, even in the homes which have been broken, still the caretaker and guardian of her own children. It has further pro- vided free hospital care and medical service in all cases of childbirth, and all the year around trained - nurses in each community whose services are free in the instruction of mothers in the care and feed- _ing of young children. It provides free medical aid and hospital caxe in all cases of serious illness and accident for those whose income falls below a certain standard. It provides for accident insurance and finally for old age pensions. HELPING THE AGED HELPS OLD AND YOUNG 1t is quite likely that the old age pension, where- ever it has been established, has had the, effect of immediately raising the standard of living for most families to a more marked degree than any other piece of legislation ever enacted. . In a long conference with. Mr. Woods, a member of parliament in Tasmania, and who had been one of the original promoters of the old age pension, I learned that this conclusion had not only been the result of my own limited observation, but also of those who had been most vitally concerned in the Blrd’s-eye view of workingmen’s homes in New Zealand, built by the govern- Lowering the cost of living is one way _of boosting wages, that is, real wages, which our own country apparently hasn’t When any such step is suggested here, the people supposed to have the “know-how” declare it to be visionary, sociqlistic and- un-American, Un- American evidently means unprofitable to the special interests, for our workers haVe to hve as; do those of other countries, and very tew of them have enough. ment and- sold ‘at cost to the citizens. heard of. have ‘been concerning limita-~ state, it is true as a matter of - \ movement from its” be- ginning. I asked him what he regarded as the strongest argument to be used in securing the adoption of old age pen- sions. He replied that as the result of living under the law he would not now think it well to make very much out of any of the arguments which he and others had used when fighting for its adoption. He said that the old age pension had ordinarily been sup- ported for the sake of the old people as a mat- ter of merciful consider- ation for the outworn, and that consideration had been sufficient to se- cure its enactment. In actual operation, how- ever, it had done more for the children and for whole families than it had accomplished even for the aged. In most families there is but, one al- ternative for the aged poor; it is either the workhouse or a home with some of the children. Where the children also are poor, the average family income makes provisicn only for the average family, and in determining wages the income for the average family is taken, con- sideration being given only to the parents and their children. There is no general average of consideration for the needs of grandparcnts, and whatever is appropriated from the-poor -man’s incomé for the grandparents is done at the expense of the children. Every mother in such a home is constantly in the position of determining whether the old folks or the children shall have the benefit of an income - possibly sufficient for a low standard of comfort for one or the other, but rarely sufficient for both. The old age pension not only provides an income for the aged, ‘but the income provided, small as 1t " is, added to the receipts of the average poor man’s family, not only provides for the necessary cash outlay for the added boarder but has been found to be so distinct an advantage to the poor man’s family that the grown children compete with each other to determine in which home there shall bé found a corner warmed and waiting for the aged and penniless. . Again, he said, in his own case (he was a lino- type operator by trade) that as he had been hav- ing annual vacations for many years, he had -al- ways wanted to go across to the mainland of the Australasian continent, but had never felt that he could afford it and each year the money he would have spent”for his journey was added to his savings account in an- ticipation of the "rainy day which must come when overtaken by old age. - 3 The very first year after the old age pension went into operation he took the journey, but he said it had been some years after he did. it before it occurred to him why he had done so. The old age pension. PAGE EIGHT B T ——— IS Head office building of the public trust department in Wellington, New Zealand. So successful has this service become that practically all estates are now handled through it as a matter of course. Vast savings have been effected for the poor and at the same time the state has never lost a cent. ‘had. taken the sting = out of the fear of old age and immediately raised the standard of living for the able-bodied - and the well employed. In every country there are the estates of minors, of the deceased, of the insane, estates in process of liquidation under the orders of the ‘courts, of . the feeble-minded, and finally of the sbsent. . Trustees appointed by the courts have frequent- ly administered estates greatly to the advantage of the trustees and greatly to the injury of -those. dependent. It fre- quently happens that a poor man dies with $50 "\ in the bank and the court expenses are more than the $50, and in this way the court fees and law- yer’s - charges take the man’s money that should be available for the use of his own family. When executors are named in wills it is fre- quently the case that they are named for family considerations be- cause known and trusted, and it rarely happens that the neighbor who is best loved is at the same time most competent in man- aging the estates thus given to their care. In New Zcaland there is a public officer known as the public trustee. He is made by law the trustee under all appointments made by the court. He is authorized to act under the power of attorney for all absent persons and he iz further authorized to act as the exec- utor of all the estates of the deceased, when named in the wills, and is made by law the executor of all who die intestate;™ All sorts of properties are managed, all sorts of funds are administered and it rarely occurs any more that any other executor is ever named in a will. There are no charges for legal advising or for any of the ordinary legal procedures, no charg- ing for the drafting of wills, and in all services pay- ment is finally made on the commission basis, which rarely exceeds 2% per cent of the sums finally paid to the beneficiaries. MY OWN-- EXPERIENCE For instance, under the New Zealand laws, when I had signed an agreement to remain in New Zealand .for two and one-half years, I discovered that it was cheaper to buy a home than to rent one even for so brief a pegiod. When I came away I simply signed a power of attorney to the public trustee to dispose of the property for me. The property was sold and my equity in the cottage, amounting to $1,000, has been collected in small installments and has now been fully paid and all costs to me for all services whatsoever amounted to the sum of $25. It was a $4,000 transaction and involved many set- tlements of old accounts standing against the prop- erty in the name of the person from whom. I had made the purchase. The nation guarantees all the transactions of this department. No one has ever lost a penny. in any of its transactions. No one, helpless, absent or infirm, has ever been robbed or wronged, and it has never cost the government one penny to create, equip or manage this great ‘social service, The state is properly the guardlan of our rights. The state can be the guardian of these rights ° most effectively by providing ways by which “one may earn’a living and so justify his right to life and by which he may pursue happiness pro- Yected against wrongs by those:who prey upon the helpléss with universal mutual insurance against accident and misfortune. (The subject of the next article in this senes wxll be “'l‘he Nation as a Ploneer. ) ¢