THE NEED FOR WORK
Sm,—What Sir William Beveridge is trying to achieve in his Report is simply another word for national prosperity, a word, the meaning of which even the least intellectual of us understand. A prosperity which flows through the whole community of the State, bringing security in its train to all including the weakest brethren, is obviously a policy which no one of us could or would refuse to support, although we may differ in the method of reaching such a goal. I do not think that anyone would deny that the only way of achieving individual prosperity with the resulting freedom from want and social security which it brings is by hard work spiced with initiative, enterprise and thrift. Surely this nation is only one such individual multiplied by 40 million. National security in this sense appears, therefore, only obtainable through prosperity and cannot be created merely by a wave of- a wand held either by Sir William Beveridge or any other economist, or even by any politician, whether he be Conservative, Liberal or Labour. We are only deceiving ourselves if we think it can be achieved in any other way.
Social security as outlined by the Beveridge Report must be expensive, and can only be . mirage if such expense is unsupported by prosperity; the result, without prosperity, must inevitably be heavy borrowings by the Government of the day, and unsupported credit of this nature only leads to bankruptcy, which in the case of a nation is another word for inflation. Let us, therefore, as a nation resolve, when peace comes, to work harder than ever before, not as serfs of a State or under some political catch- phrase which no one can clearly define or understand, but as free and independent men and women subscribing to and endeavouring to live up to the ethics of Christianity and the great traditions of our forefathers. Homes for heroes, I am certain, will have to be built by the heroes and heroines themselves on their return with the same energy that they will have expended in saving their country. R. JOHNSON. London.
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