UNEMPLOYMENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 839, 10 June 1910, Page 5

UNEMPLOYMENT.

COMPULSORY INSURANCE. Dy Telegraph—Frees Association—Gopyrictat (Rec. June 9, 10 p.m.) London, June 9. The Prime Minister, Mr. .Asquifh, has announced that the Government's -"Unemployment Assurance Bill has been completed, but that, under the circumstances, he feared it would not be introduced in 1910. BENEFITS AND LEVIES. THE PROPOSALS OUTLINED. The .Labour Exchanges Act of last session is the pioneer of the Government's Bill for compulsory insurance against une'mploymettt. The labour-finding exchanges and , the insurance system are expected to co-operate, and to mutually support each other. In a speech last v-ear, Mr. Churchill, then President of the Board of Trade, pointed out that fho labour oxchnnges would enable the Government to deal stringently with vagrants; "it is not possible," he added, "to distinguish between the loafer and the bona-fido workman except by some effective system of finding work." Ho went on to indicate that the Government would prefer lo select some trades, and to make insurance against unemployment compulsory in them, rather than to make it voluntary in all.

Selected Trades. The trades to which the scheme would be compuLsorily applied would be; — (1) House-building and works of construction. (2) Engineering. (3) Machine and tool-making, (i) Ship and boat Building, (o) Vehicles. (3) Sawyers. . Mr. Churchill explained the benefits, the contributions, and the system as follows:—"They (the Government) propose to.aim at a scale of benefits which would bo somewhat lower both in amount and in duration than those which the strongest trade unions paid at the present time. But they .would be benefits which nevertheless afforded n substantial weekly payment over a period which would cover by far the greater part of the average period of unemployment for all unemployed persons, in this great group of insured trades. In order to enable:such a scale of benefits to be paid, it was necessary that they should raise something between sd. and Cd.—rather nearer 6(1. than M.—per man per week, and that sum they proposed should be mode up by contributions, not necessuriiy equal contributions, between the workmen, the employers, and the State." Reasons for Selection. "These trades are chosen," said .Mr. Churchill, "because they are a group in which unemployment is not ■.. only high, but where it is chronic, where in tho best of times it persists, and whert it is marked by seasonal and cyclical variations of severity, taking the form not of short time or of any of those devices for spreading wages and averaging risks, but involving a total, absolute, regular, periodical discharge of a certain proportion of the workers."

These trades, too, , contain about 2,500,000 adult males, or one-third of the total industrial population.. Insurance cards will be issued to the men, and stamped each week. When the worker insured loses his work, he will take his canl t« the nearest labour exchange, and will be either found work or paid a benefit.