INVALIDITY ASSURANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 302, 16 May 1911, Page 5

INVALIDITY ASSURANCE.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE'S SCHEME. FRIENDLY SOCIETIES' CRITICISM. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright, Received 15, 9.15 p.m. London, May 15. The chairman at a general meeting of the National Deposit Friendly Society, regretted that national insurance was not voluntary. He doubted if the Bill was the panacea for sickness and poverty which Mr. Lloyd-George suggested. Mr. L. Davis, in his presidential address to a southern conference of the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows, Baw in the Bill a possibility of State interference which might mean the undoing of a century's work. If friendly societies were safeguarded, the Oddfellows would support Mr. Lloyd-George.

The council of the Social Democratic Party resolved that while supporting the principle of national insurance, Mr. Lloyd-George's measure would make the working class hear the burden, ameliorating some of the worst results of the capitalistic system, instead of saddling the cost on the master class. The unemployment clauses were inadequate.

A DUTCH SCHEME. The Hague, May 14. The Dutch Government has introduced an invalidity assurance scheme for workmen earning under £IOO per annum. The premiums range from 4d to lOd per week, employers and workmen each paying half. Pensions will be payable to those aged 70 years. THE GERMAN SCHEME. Commenting on Mr. Lloyd-George's insurance scheme, which was broadly outlined by him at the time of the elections, the London Daily Mail wrote:—''Only in Germany do we find a scheme comparable with the Government's programme. The German schemes are compulsory upon all wage-earners and salaried persons earning not more than £IOO per annum. There are, in fact, two schemes, one dealing with sickness of a temportary character, and the second dealing with invalidity. ■ In .1908 the cost of\insuring 13,000.000 persons against sickness was £17,000,000, of which a sum of £10,000,000 was paid away in benefits. The accumulated funds at the end of the. year were £13,746,000. To this scheme the State makes no contribution at all, the workpeople paying, two-thirds, while one-third is found by the employers. The term 'invalidity,' as used in Germany, implies fairly permanent incapacity for work, and the cost of insuring about 10,000,000 Germans against this invalidity is .£11,500,000, of which about £8,000,000 is paid awav in benevolent benefits during the year. Of the £11,500,0 t M which the scheme cost, £4,500,000 wai paid by the workers, and £4.500,000 ',- th:. employers, the remaining &i ."JXOiKI only being paid by the State and this subsidy was made in the form of a yearly addition of £2 10s to the pension which accrue.?. The accumulated funds amount to £73,500.000. On January 1, 1007, the number of pensions being paid was 962,277, divided thus: Old age. 125,-' GO3; permanent invalidity, 814,575; provisional invalidity, 22,099. The average old-ago pension was £7 IRs Id, The average permanent invalidity pension was £8 0s 2d. The average'provisional invalidity pension wi'.s £.B 0s 3d. benefits which, of course, (U'e very much lower than the standard of 5s a week, or £l3 a year, which holds in Great Britain."