The Daily News. TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1912. NATIONAL INSURANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 55, 23 July 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1912. NATIONAL INSURANCE.

Slowly but surely the opposition to the National Insurance scheme inaugurated in Britain the week before last is disappearing, and there is reason to believe that even that conservative institution, the British Medical Association, which has opposed the scheme tooth and nail from its inception, will join the forces that are endeavoring to ameliorate the conditions of the working people there. Mr. LloydGeorge has met the doctors more than once, and the scale of payments has now been so arranged that the amount available for medical fees will actually be greater than the amount that carefully prepared statistics show to be reaching the doctors at present. A section of the doctors are loyally co-operating >rith the Government, so that the medical benefits conferred by this epoch-making measure will in certain districts shortly be available. The scheme is somewhat complicated, and it was therefore inevitable that there should be misunderstandings concerning ils operations even among the very people it was framed to help. These misunderstandings, however. are being gradually removed, and support is now taking (he piy.ee of opposition. A significant item appeared in yesterday's cables regarding the .scheme. For months past we have been treated to views condemnatory of the Act, leading one to suppose that every employer, from housewife to industrial prince, was against the inauguration of a measure that had been designed to cripple private and national interests. The item read: "Lord Ashton's firm has notified linoleum workers that as the In-

surance Act is the finest yet passed in the workers' interests, the firm will pay J the whole contribution and also ment sickness benefits to the extent of one-third." Lord Ashton is a large employer of labor, and his decision will involve the payment of thousands of pounds yearly. His example is a noble one, and should serve to set other large employers thinking hard about their obligations to the men who are the chief j agents in creating their immense wealth and whose condition has for many years past been well nigh hopeless. Mr. Lloyd George has stated succinctly the meaning of the scheme to Britain's poor: "It will do more to hinder or assuage human

misery," lie says, "than any law since the abolition of the corn laws. It makes provision against sickness and invalidity for fifteen million men and women workers, and against the distress which follows unemployment in two and a half million homes." The fund from which the insurances provided by the Act are paid is formed by contributions from employers, employed and the State. The I employer pays into the fund for himself |

and his workmen, deducting the workmen's contribution from wages. Where workmen are exempt from contribution, by age or incapacity, employers must contribute the employer's quota, but no contribution has to be made by or for the exempted workman. This provision has caused some misunderstanding, and led to the discharge of aged workers in certain towns. The scheme is certain to require alteration and modification to make it practicable and successful, but that such a humanitarian measure is in the right direction even its most unreasonable opponent must Given a fair trial and the sympathetic co-opera-tion of all parties—the State, the employers, employees and the doctors—the National Insurance Act will in a few years make Britain a better, a happier and a richer country.

COST OF ARMED PEACE. It is difficult to translate in arithmetical terms the cost of the armed peace which just now afflicts the civilised world, but a writer in the Quarterly Review, Mr. Edgar Crammond, attempts this feat, and gives some striking figures. He takes the eight great naval Powers—Great Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Japan and Austria-Hun-gary. In 1902 they spent £94,410,238 upon their fleets, in 1011 the total naval expenditure had grown to £147,073,041, an increase of £52,656,803, or 56 per cent. And the curious fact emerges that the smallest percentage of increase is that of Great Britain, 27 per .cent. The increase for the United States is 74 per cent.; for Japan, 137 per cent.; for Germany, 119 per cent. These figures are sufficient to prove that Great Britain .has increased her lleet slowly and reluctantly, and lingers far in the rear of her rivals. The ■ two Powers which are most eager in the fierce race for naval power are Germany and Japan; and these figures have a significance it is impossible to overlook. Mr. Crammond gives another curiously ■ suggestive bit of arithmetic. He takes the gross tonnage of the mercantile marine of all the great Powers; it amounts ,to 32,577,655 tons,, and of this nearly two-thirds—or -19,012,294 tons—are un,der the British flag! If the cost of the navy of each Tower is distributed ..over its mercantile tonnage, here, again, j-Great Britain is the most economical of all the nations. Its naval expenditure amounts to' £2 7s per ton of its mercantile marine, against £5 Is per ton ipaid by Germany, £5 10s paid by Japan, *£lo per ton paid by the United States, and £l4 19s per ton paid by Russia. The ( money expended on its fleet may be really regarded 'as the insurance premium each country pays for the safety of its comnwrce; and here, again, Great Britain ■as more frugftl than any' other State. The cost of the British navy amounts to 2.81 per cent, on the value of its foreign trade; the United States pays 4.68 per cent.; France, 5.83 cent.;' Russia, 6.95 per cent.; and Japan, 10.65 per cent. If, in other words, Great Britain doubled her tremendous fleet she would only be paying an insurance premium on her foreign trade equal to that which France now pays, and less than half that which Japan pays.