THE UNEMPLOYMENT BILL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10231, 8 May 1911, Page 3

THE UNEMPLOYMENT BILL.

COLLECTION OF SICKNESS FUNDS. "POST OFFICE CONTRIBUTORS." United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copy right. (Received May G, 5 a.m.) LONDON, May 5. Under the Nationalist Insurance Bill sickness funds will be collected by means of cards —to which employers and workmen shall affix stamps—which the workmen shall send to the various approved benefit societies having local committees, such as Foresters and Oddfellows. Workmen not members of benefit societies shall be oollected into a body, to bo called "Post Office contributors."

UNEMPLOYMENT PROPOSALS. The unemployment, proposals deal only with tho engineering and building trades, numbering 2,400,000 persons.

Employers and workmen shall pay twopence halfpenny each weekly, the ,State bearing a forth of tho total cost. Special abatements will be made in the case of employers paying their men by the year. Unemployed engineers shall receive a weekly payment (amount not cabled) for fifteen weeks, and men in the building trades six shillings to seven shillings. They will get nothing when they have been dismissed for misconduct, or because of strikes or lockouts.

The men's contributions will amount to £1,100,000, and those of tho employers to £900,000. The cost to the State at 'he beginning will be £750.000.

Claims shall be made through labour exchanges, which shall offer work. A court of referees shall decide whether a person applying must take a job. Trade unions insuring men against unemployment shall be allowed to pay benefits and receive the amount the State offers. NO EXTRA TAXATION. Ibe two schemes will not involve additional taxation, but there will be no remission of taxation.

Mr Austen Chamberlain (ex-Chan-cellor of the Exchequer) promised the scheme his goodwill and assistance, •>:-> d reserved his criticism of the measure.

STRONG CRITICISM

(Received May 6, 9.10 a.m.)

LONDON, May 5

There has been some strong criticism of the provision of the Insurance Bill that any deficiency due to workmen's smaller contributions when they are earning less than 15s weekly, should be made t«p by the employer. The Pall Mall Gazette (Unionist) cordially recognises Mr Lloyd-George's fearless initiative and bold imaginative powers. The general advantages of the scheme are, says the paper, indisputable. The Bill must pinch somewhere; there is no effective difference between taxing the food of the people and taxing wages by deducting eleven millions a year.