The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1912. THE AMAZING DUCHESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 305, 21 June 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1912. THE AMAZING DUCHESS.

A cablegram received this morning states that the Duchess of Somerset, in a letter to the press, says that aa the infamous Insurance Act does not touch the fringe of poverty, she will passively resist the payment of the servant tax. She urges employers not to submit, and adds that th© whole country cannot be imprisoned and fined. One wonders whether to admire most the crass, impertinence of this otherwise delightful contribution to an industrial settlement or to marvel at its immense lack of logic. Of course the Act does not touch the fringe of poverty, for it goes far deeper in its attempt to solve the problem of being poor. To quote the words of the Chancellor when he introduced the Bill in the British House of Commons, it is "a measure that will relieve untold misery in millions of homes —misery that is undeserved; that will help to prevent a good deal of wretchedness, and which will arm the nation to fight until it conquers the 'pestilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noonday.' " In less picturesque language, the Health Insurance Scheme proposes to insure nearly fifteen million workers* (« 33 per cent, of the population of Great Britain) against loss of health, and to provide for the prevention and cure of sickness. To provide funds for this admirable object, employers are to pay 3d a week in respect of each of their servants, the servants themselves will pay 4d a week if men and 3d a week if women, and the State will contribute an amount equivalent to two-ninths in the case of men, and one-fourth in the case of women. The basis of the scheme is to be compulsory, and it is to apply universally to the working classes. At the same time the Bill also provides for the compulsory insurance against unemploy-

ment of all workingmcn over eighteen years of age engaged in the principal in- J dustries. Apparently what is exercising the Duchess is that she will be called upon to pay 3d a week in respect of each of her servants, whilst those poor individuals- are only mulcted in the sum !if a modest groat, although the benefits • ;!' the scheme are to be reaped by them. I':it a Duchess who cannot afford to pay 3d a week for her dignified butler, and her impressive footmen, and her scullerymaid, and her spry and sprightly hall-boy, does not amount to a Duchess at all. If she sees poverty staring her in the face as the result of this exorbitant demand upon her pocket she has several obvious methods of relief. She could dismiss the whole of the staff and do her own housework, or if this were too drastic a cure she might "sack" the charlady and do her own washing, ear-marking the honorarium thus saved for paying the fees of the other servants, and so saving herself sleepless nights of anxiety as to how she was to raise the necessary Is liy 2 d without pawning the family diamonds or cutting the historic oaks in the Park at Totnes. She has, however, evolved a better scheme by proposing to revolt against payment at all, and chosen the alternative of going to gaol. In this event, of course, she would save her keep at home, and the money thus earned could be allocated to the servants' fees. Her appeal to other employers to join her in her resistance on the ground that "the whole country cannot be imprisoned and fined" is the merest subterfuge to cover her tracks. Of course the Government cannot imprison the whole country, but it could very easily make a beginning with the amazing Duchess. It is one of the standing wonders of the times how an effete aristocracy has grown to regard its servants as the merest chattels, and to resent the expenditure of tenpenceha'penny on their comfort or on the embellishment of their fifth-storey attics, but it is seldom that one of them has the courage to give expression to this particular philosophy in the public press.