NATIONAL INSURANCE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1092, 3 April 1911, Page 5

NATIONAL INSURANCE.

BRITISH LABOUR OBJECTIONS. By Teleeraph—Press Association-Copyrieht London, March 31. The Management Committee of the General Federation of Trades Unions has passed a resolution criticising Mr. LloydGeorge's sickness and invalidity proposals. The committee regrets that the Government did not invite tho co-operation of trades unions, and disagrees with, the proposal to separate sickness and unemployment funds from tho general funds, m preventing tho use of the whole of the union's resources during strikes, and threatening their existence. The committee is also opposed to any scheme providing for Government interference in trade union affairs and management. TWO GREAT, SCHEMES. FOE THE INVALID AND THE OUT OF WORK. The British invalidity insurance scheme must be carefully distinguished, first, from old age pensions, and, secondly, from unemployment insurance. Invalidity insurance is m«ant for men and women who are debarred from working through continued ill-health. _ Unemployment insurance- will bo compulsory only for the buikliitg, shipbuilding, and engineering trades—flitit is, for 21 million workers. Invalidity insurance will be compulsory and universal for all persons between the ages of sixteen or eighteen and seventy, whose income is less than .£l6O a year. Unemployment insurance supplements the work of trade unions; invalidity insurance supplements the work of friendly societies. The details of unemployment insurance have long been fairly well known. A sum of Gd. a week will be subscribed in more or less equal parts by the State, the employer, and the employed. Tho total cost of the unemployment scheme will thus bo about 3! millions, and it will be worked through the Labour Exchanges. Roughly, tho charge upon the State of unemployment insurance will not l>o more than 1J million a year—at any rate initially. Tho main outlines of the invalidity insurance scheme as drafted are as follow: Compulsory iusuraneo for sickness and invalidity for the whole of the working population of tho country whose incomes are. below tho income tax level of ,£IGO a year. The minimum amount of the insurance is to be ss. a week, this to be tho limit of the State compulsory scheme, all insurance beyond the fixed minimum of ss. per week being n. purely voluntary insurance by the member with the friendly society. Tho minimum insurance of ss. a week will bo guaranteed by the State, but the extra insurance will carry no guaranteo of any kind. . Tho period which the State insurance will cover will be the working years of life between 16 and 70. The age of 70-has been fixed for the cessation of the sickness insurance becauw of the provision of old ago pensions, but there will be no opposition on the part of the State to a man insuring for a further sickness or superannuation benefit.. The contribution needed to provide a sickness insurance of ss. a week will bp calculated by the Government actuaries, and the cost will TSe met one half by the workman insurer and the remaining half in equal proportions by the employer and the State.