INSURANCE FOR WORKERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14143, 19 August 1909, Page 5

INSURANCE FOR WORKERS.

COMPULSORY CONTRIBUTIONS By Telegraph.— Association.—Copyright. •: - London, August 17. Mr.' Winston Churchill (President of-the Board of Trade), in an interview, explained that the unemployment insurance scheme which he and Mr. Lloyd-George had matured would be - compulsory and contributory. " It. was divided into different sections , for different trades. The weekly contributions would be 2id each from the worker, the employer, and the State. The employer's duty would be to deduct the worker's contribution from his: wages.; The scheme would be for regular and competent workers only, habitual idlers must go to" the distress committees or receive poor law relief. " The' assistance "will" be,"less than the trade union relief. • The- annual cost to the Treasury will be a million and a-half. : The insurance will be first applied to building, engineering, and shipbuilding construction works and vehiclemaking trades. MR. CHURCHILL'S SCHEME. Some interesting references to his scheme for insuring workmen against unemployment were made by' Mr. . Churchill a few weeks ago. He said that before the present Parliament ended, unless it was violently broken by a foul blow, an extensive measure of insurance against unemployment would be passed, based on the principle of workmen being able to make some little weekly Sacrifice,- to be joined by an employers' contribution and a State sub-, vention. It had been argued that in adopting a policy of contributory insurance the Government had admitted that they were wrong in establishing old-acre pensions upon a non-contributory basis. - He did not think that, was true.'. There was no inconsistency between a non-contributory system of old age pensions and a contributory system of insurance against unemployment, sickness, invalidity, or, widowhood. ' The circumstances and conditions; were entirely, different. The fact that at 70 old age pensions were secured made a tremendous difference to every form 'of insurance. . An'actuary whom he had asked to make calculations said it was no exaggeration to say that the of invalidity insurance to cover a man till he was 70 were, in many cases, scarcely half what they would be if they had to cover him "till "death."

The decisive question was: Would the British working classes embrace the opportunities which , would be shortly offered them? They were a new departure, and involved an element of compulsion and regulation which ,was- unusual in happy-go-lucky English life. He confessed lie would work for such a policy and try to carry it through, even if it were a little unpopular at first, and lie would be willing to pay the forfeit of an exclusion from power' in order to carry it through, because he knew there was no other way within the reach of the present: generation of men 'and women by which the stream of preventible misery could be cut off. .