NATIONAL INSURANCE.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3648, 4 September 1880, Page 2

NATIONAL INSURANCE.

Lord Carnarvon has jußt propounded in the House of Lords a scheme of social improvement second to none in interest and in importance. It aims at nothing less than doing away with poor relief, and substituting for it a system of universal compulsory •" insurance against sickness and old age. The idea is not a new one.. Many essays hare been written on it, and it has inspired innumerable speeches. Sermons hare also been preached on the topic. A. discourse was devoted to it last autumn by Mr Blackley in the pulpit of Westminster Abbey, which attracted some attention at the time, and was fully discussed by the Press. Lord Carnarvon proposes that every young man between the ages of eighteen and twenty* one should compulsorily contribute a sum of £10, in payments to be spread over three years, to a national insurance fund. This amount, it is calculated, will produce 8s a week in case of sickness, and will entitle him to 43 a week when he has passed the age of seventy. This, accord* iug to Lord Carnarvon, will render our industrial population practically independent of Unions, which, as he justly said, often impose an unfair tax upon the work* ing classes, and stimulate the evil they ought to remedy. It would also render them independent of friendly societies, the good work done by which he fully admitted, but one of the disadvantages of which is that even registration fails to supply any absolute guarantee for their solvency. There is naturally much that is attractive to the mind of the philan* throphic reformer in such a scheme as this; but there can be very little doubt that it is destined to remain a philan* thropic dream to the end of the chapter.