COMPULSORY LIFE ASSURANCE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2628, 23 August 1881, Page 3

COMPULSORY LIFE ASSURANCE.

Writing on this subject the “ Hawke’s Bay Herald” has the following pertinent remarks ;—Ministers recently intimated, in reply to a question, that they were considering the propriety of compelling all civil servants to insure their lives for a sum equal to one year’s salary. Wo do not know whether this was said in earnest, or was merely intended for an evasive answer, but if any such scheme be propounded it should be summarily rejected, as a piece of class legislation pure and simple. We believe that as education progresses, and the masters become more thoughtful, schemes of compulsory State insurance will pass from the realm of theory to that of practice. Our grandchildren will probably accept the principle as one of the foundation stones of true vState policy. Already thinking men in all civilised countries are beginning to write on compulsory insurance, and even a comparatively few years maj r see some step in that direction taken. But wo contend that, if compulsory insurance be good for one class, it is good for all, and that no argument would justify the selection of'the Civil Service of a country as the one body compelled to insure. Every man in the State should be compelled to contribute his quota towards a general and universal insurance fund. The chief fault of Priuce Bistnark’s scheme, as propounded to the German Parliament, is its partiality in applying only to the laboring classes.