NATIONAL INSURANCE

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1122, 9 May 1911, Page 5

NATIONAL INSURANCE

AID TO THE WORKERS. REDUCING THE POOR LAW BILL THE CHANCELLOR INTERVIEWED. By Telccraph—Press Association-Copyrieht London, May 7. Tho Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lloyd-George, interviewed regarding his Invalidity and Unemployment Insurance Bill, oaid that thirty per cent, of pauperism was due to sickness; hence if a patient could be prevented from becoming a chronic invalid and be rescued from the grip of the poor law the present expenditure on pauperism would be largely diverted and more effectively utilised. Tho Bill affects 270,000 domestic workers in London, of which number a quarter of a million are females. Women workers who marry insured men are to be allowed to rejoin the fsad upon widowhood, oven although they have reached tho age of 55 years. Men whose pay rises above GOs. a week will be flowed to remain members, if they pay che threepence a week formerly paid by their employers, in addition to their own fourpence.

WHAT ONE FIRM WILL PAY.

THE ."SPECTATOR'S" VIEW. London, May 7. Officials of Messrs. Harland and Wolff, the Belfast shipbuilding firm, state that Mr. Lloyd-George's scheme will cost the firm .£12,500 per annum. Wages must therefore be reduced or prices increased. The "Spectator" fears that sickness malingering and unemployment malingering are likely to be stimulated by the scheme.

LABOUR MEMBER'S VIEWS.

POSTPONEMENT DESIEED. (Kcc. May 8, 9.20 p.m.) London, May 8. Mr Philip Snowden, M.P., addressing a meeting of workers at Blackburn, said the contribution fixed under the Invalidity Bill was proportionately too high. He complained of the smartness of the mamtenance allowed to women, and suggested the dropping of the unemployment section of the Bill for this year.

THE UNEMPLOYMENT SCHEME.

ITS PROVISIONS EXPLAINED. •V lucid explanation of tho British uiioniplovment "insurance schemo was pnb--1 led'in the Loudon''Tunes'* at ho end of March. Tho writer, in opening his article, explains that the scheme is complementary to the system of Labour Exchanges which was brought into opeiation in 1010. In tho wonls ol Mi. Churchill, when expounding the project of Labour Exchanges, the two systems are man and wife; they mutually support and sustain one another. Unemployment iusuranco is not practicable except in conjunction with some apparatus for finding work and testing willingness to work. Such an. apparatus exists m tne Labour Exchanges, which arp now prepared to undertake tho extension of their functions contemplated at tho lime _ot their inauguration. The system ol insurance against unemployment, as wan explained in the House of Commons, is based in four main principles. It will involve contributions from workmen and employers it will receive a substantial subvention from tho Stale; it will bo organised bv trades; it will be compulsory upon all—employers and employed,' skilled and unskilled, unionists, and non-unionists alike—within these trades. The trades to which it is,to be .applied are house-building'''livid"' wdrts-of construction, engineering, and shipbuilding. It will be evident, therefore, first, that the scheme is limited in its scone, and secondly, that in it* practical working it must be distinct from the scheme of insurance against invalidity which is also being proposed by tho ; Government, whether or not for Parliamentary convenience the two schemes may be included in tho same measure.

Collection of Payments. The method of collecting contributions for the Government's schemo of unemployment insurance lias been suggested by tho German svstem of insurance against invalidity. This is a system of inpurance cards which the employer is required to provide and to stamp. In tho proposed schemo it will probably be found that the contributions of employer and workman will bo made together by tho purchase of a stamp to be affixed by the employer to tho workman's insurance book. Tho employer will then bo entitled to deduct from. the wages of tho workman the proportion due from tho latter towards the cost of the stamp. When the workman is dismissed ho will take his book to tho nearest Labour Exchange, or other local office, and will begin to sign tho unemployed register for the purpose of receiving tho benefits provided under the scheme. He will then, either immediately or after a short time of waiting, be entitled to draw a. weekly allowance so long as he remains unemployed up to the specified maximum number of weeks in each year.

Tho system of insurance boo'-s and stamps will apply, of course, to trade unionists and non-unionists alike; but it may be possible to arrange that the former may. under suitable condition-, receive their benefits through the unions, and not direct from the Government office. Special provision will have to be made, no doubt, for dealing with persons who come on the books year after year. Although the scheme which the Government is about to inaugurate is one of relief from unemployment, it must not be regarded as providing a system which will enablo all unemployed men always to obtain relief, irrespective of their ability to work and of the work which they do in their trades. The condition of receiving benefit will be readiness and ability to accent a job if offered. The loafer and the man who is too weak or too diseased to work will therefore be automatically excluded from the operation of tho scheme, which does not profess to deal directly with the problem' of the unemployable and half-employable. These must bo dealt with by training, or in disciplinary institutions. The "problem which they provnt is one calling for solution by the Poor Law and not bv the unemployment scheme of the Board of Trade. Most Trades Included; Tho group of trades to which it is proposed to apply the system of unemployment insurance at the outset covers a large part, and that perhaps the worst part, of the whole field of unemployment apart from purely casual labour. It comprises probably nearly two and a half millions of adult workmen. This is in itself a very large proportion, perhaps one-quarter or one-third, of tho adult male population of tho United Kingdom engaged in purely industrial work, while of those outside the scheme considerable proportions, particularly in the textile and the mining industries, already have provision for unemployment made for them by systems of organised short time in slack seasons.. There is no need to labour the importance of a successful experiment in the direction of mitigating the evils due to the recurrence of unemployment among so large a section of the inhabitants of the British Isles. Apart from its humanitarian side, tho problem has an enormous economic significance, and its solution would do moro than anything else to promote content and to diminish the hardships and suffering due to the fluctuations inherent in the very nature of industry.