IN BRITAIN TODAY Compulsory Insurance Against Divorce Suggested

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32302, 21 May 1970, Page 15

IN BRITAIN TODAY Compulsory Insurance Against Divorce Suggested

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter Copyright. Cable News Digest)

LONDON.

A suggestion that bridegrooms should be made to pay a compulsory divorce insurance premium has been advanced in Britain.

The cover would be available to wives, regardless of who was to blame for the break-up of the marriage. Mr Colin Gibson, principal research officer in the legal research unit of Bedford College, University of London, makes the suggestion in “Social Work Today,” the journal of the newly-formed British Association of Social Workers. Many men earning low wages who remarry, often do not have enough money to support two families, and the State has to come to the rescue, he says. “The idea of compulsory insurance is a solution worthy of consideration.” suggests Mr Gibson. “Under such a scheme, it would be the duty of every husband to insure against any liability to support his wife and family! upon a breakdown of the marriage. “The husband’s premium would be geared to his income and to the number of children in the family. The value and number of contributions would provide that the wife’s benefit would be linked to the standard of living experienced during marriage. “Older wives would receive a higher benefit than the younger ones whose marriage had lasted for a shorter period.” Surveys have shown that of three million families with two or more dependent children, in Britain in 1966, 100,000 involved mothers who were divorced or permanently separated from their husbands, Mr Gibson says. Many fail to receive adequate maintenance from their husbands, and the Department of Social Security pays out Over £3om a year to wives in financial need.

Going Metric According to a pamphlet, ■ “Going Metric; The First: Five Years,” published by Britain’s Metrication Board, ' the whole world will be met- 1 ric by the end of the 19705. 1 As to when Britain will' change to the metric system, ! the chairman of the board (Lord Ritchie-Calder) says in his introduction to the document: “Going metric is no longer a question of whether, but of when . . . Britain

■ will be substantially a metric ’ country by 1975.” • The principle units of measurement then will be the I metre (39.37 inches), the kilogramme (2.2051 b and the ' litre (about 1.75 pints). , “Very quickly,” the board i says, “these will become the . basis of everyday life for the 1 man or woman in the street, I home or workshop.” By 1972 or 1973, retailers ’ should be using metric measunnents for milk, beer, 1 and petrol. The board admits there will ■ be squabbles; the brewing industry, for instance, has objected to having to replace millions of bottles and stamped glasses. In this case, says the board, the switch to metric bottles is not too urgent, but it is important that draught beer ■should be sold in metric quantities as soon as possible—lOoz glasses or no. Milk Problem There could be problems also in the sale of milk, because a switch to the halflitre milk bottle used universally in Europe would undoubtedly cause a drop in liquid milk sales. Petrol pumps should be converted to metrics by late 1974, but the board would like this date brought forward. If beer, petrol, and milk can be settled the remainder of the food and consumer goods industry should be metricated easily; and this is the most difficult of all the industries, said the report, which forecasts few problems with over-the-counter sales. Tht transport industry, it says, should be largely metric b January, 1972, and speed limits will probably go metric in 1973—a move demanding changes to about 250.000 road signs. Airlines will adopt quickly metric units for handling freight and baggage; and many have done so already. But similar changes could take longer elsewhere in civil aviation, becouse pilots must make instant decisions without reference to conversion tables. The Inland Revenue will use metrics to assess rates from 1973, and a scheme is afoot for the metric sizing; of boots and shoes. The General Post Office is!

planning to charge for telephone calls according to metric distances.

Encouraging progress has been made in the engineering industry, particularly among the larger companies, says the report, but the board has found many problems among the smaller companies which cannot afford to plan too far for metrics. The construction industry should change easily by 1972 to preparing specifications in metrics, the report says. The board refuses to estimate the cost of the changeover, saying that it is impossible to do so. I.R.A. Chief The Dublin police have arrested the chief of staff of the outlawed Irish Republican Army on a truckstealing charge, drawing more attention to the gunsmuggling disclosure that shook Mr Jack Lynch’s Government in the Irish Republic. Cathal Goulding, who has spent 17 of his 48 years in Irish and British prisons for his offences as a militant nationalist, and an associated, Michael O’Driscoll, have been refused bail.

The police say that they are seeking three other men, who escaped after a stolen truck was stopped in a Dublin suburb.

Goulding and O’Driscoll have been charged with stealing a truck valued at £4OO. No weapons were found in it. Mr Lynch’s moderate Government won a vote of confidence, by 73 votes to 66 eight days ago, after the Prime Minister had dismissed two Cabinet Ministers whom he accused of involvement in a plot to smuggle about £28,000 worth of guns to the Roman Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. There has been no official disclosure of evidence that the weapons, which were to have been brought in from Vienna, ever reached the Irish Republic. Mr Lynch told Parliament that Roman Catholics in Ulster had asked him, and other members of his Government, for arms in the past year of Roman CatholicProtestant rioting on the other side of the border. “I told them we could not. and would not, supply any guns,” he said.

Goulding runs a housepainting business in Dublin, and has been permitted to move about freely. He recently told a reporter, however: “I know my phone lis tapped, my mail is opened, ‘and my movements are I watched.”

The Irish Republican Army is outlawed in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and. as a known I.R.A. revolutionary, Goulding could have been arrested at any time under the Irish Republic’s Offences Against the State Act.

Proposal For Nuclear Ship

A report’on the prospects of Britain building the world’s first nuclear-powered container ship has gone before the Minister of Technology (Mr Wedgwood Benn). The result of 13 years of research, the proposed vessel could swing the lead in world shipbuilding back to Britain. This lead has rested for some years with Japan, but with orders for Japanese-built ships now running some four years ahead of readily-avail-able labour, Britain is keen to regain the initiative. The nuclear-powered ship has been designed by Vickers, who envisage a vessel of 59,000 tons displacement. It would have a speed of 27 or 28 knots, and would carry over 1000 standard containers.

Airbus Will Fly In 1972

The A3OOB European Airbus will have its first flight in 1972 and will be delivered to airlines the following year, the Hawker-Siddeley Aircraft Company says. Production work on the 261-seater short-haul jet aircraft has already begun in Britain, France and West Germany. Hawker-Siddeley is working on the wings, Deutsche Airbus, of Germany, is producing the rear fuselage and tail section, and the main assembly is being built at the Toulouse factory of France’s S.N.I.A.S. . The basic aircraft is designed for routes of up to 1500 miles, but can be developed for longer ranges and higher payloads.

Forgotten T reasure

A priceless, 2000-year-old Celtic gold necklace, which had been lying on the bottom of a wardrobe since the Second World War, has been ordered to be handed over to the British Museum. The necklace was unearthed in 1943 by two men digging a trench in a village outside Birmingham. One of the men told the inquest jury that they had swilled it under a tap, and they thought it was the handle of a coffin. The witness’s companion had kept the object in his wardrobe for 27 years, and his children used to play with it One day, his wife saw a newspaper article on antiques and thought it might be of interest. Museum experts later identified it as a torque, dating from either the first century B.C. or the early part of the first century A.D., and said that it was of immense archaeological interest. The two men will be given a reward for their find.

Smoker s’ Yen

Heavy cigarette smokers generally have a sweet tooth and a yen for coffee, tea or liquor, according to a report to the British Medical Association. “Heavy cigarette smoking is positively associated with an increase in the number of cups of hot drinks consumed daily, and with the amount of sugar consumed,” says the report, published in the B.M.A.’s monthly journal the “Lancet.”-

The report was compiled jointly by Dr Richard Doll, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University; Dr A. E. Bennett, of St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, London; and a physicist, Mr R. W. Howell, formerly of the British Atomic Energy Authority. The report was based on a study of patients at the Central Middlesex Hospital, workers employed by the Atomic Energy Authority, and nearly 3000 men living in the North Lambeth district of London. Smokers in all three groups drank more tea or coffee than non-smokers, and put more sugar into their drinks. The report noted that previous studies had shown that heavy smokers were likely to drink more liquor than norismokers.

“Perhaps the simple explanation is local dryness in the mouth, together with the taste of smoking,” the report says. “Diminution of taste is a possible and likely explanation for the finding that smokers use more sugar.” The researchers found that one-third of those giving up cigarettes gain weight and go on a diet.

The increase in imports from 1967-72 is now put at a yearly average of between 51 per cent and 5j per cent, which compares with a range of 3J per cent to 4| per cent in the Government’s “Task Ahead” report in February, 1969.

The vital need, the GreenPaper says, is to preserve Britain’s economic competitiveness to consolidate the improvement in the country’s balance of payments.

Still Fewer Immigrants

The number of immigrants arriving in Britain last year was the lowest since controls were introduced in 1962, according to an official report. . A total of 36,557 Commonwealth citizens, excluding East African holders of United Kingdom passports, was admitted in 1969. compared with 53,069 in 1968. This was a drop of 31 per cent and by comparison with the 1967 total of 61,377. a drop of 40 per cent. The number of immigrants arriving with vouchers issued by the Department of Employment and Productivity, to settle and work in Britain, was 4010 in 1969. compared with 5691 in 1968, and the lowest total since the immigration controls were introduced.