NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18584, 17 December 1923, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE LONDON MONEY MARKET. • -V-wy • ■; :rs;

Security and 5 per cent, may be regarded as "the chief aim and object of the present-day investor, , to whom preference shares , and preferred , stocks imply just that element of risk -which he is not prepared to face, says a correspondent of the Economist of November 3. /. Nigeria endeavoured to set up a higher standard of price—and ft correspondingly lower yield—in offering a 4' per cent, stock at 88. The underwriters of that loan are best acquainted with the sequel, and the price stands at 1$ discount. Victoria and the Commonwealth tried 5 per cents, at 99; Union of South Africa asked and all three issues stand at a premium. Conversion stock and local loans yield £4 8s 9d per cent, on the money. War Fives pay £4 19s at 101, or £4 16s if it be calculated, as the Stock Exchange practice is* that repayment at 100 will be effected at the earlier of its two dates, 1929-47. Funding and Victory loans, with their yield of £4 7s per cent, on the money, are relatively the dearest of these British Government securities. The correspondent notes the scarcity in the market of colonial Government securities, and adds:. The running yields range from about 4£ per cent, on the money to 4J per cent., and, allowing for redemption, about 4$ per cent, is obtainable. But the investment appetite is so keen that the demand keeps up with supply, and in spite of all the recent new issues in this market, the cry for security and 5 per cent, becomes, weekly, more difficult to placate. MODERN BIOGRAPHIES. Biography has been compared with portrait painting, says Lord Riddell, in a London journal. It must, however, be confessed that successful biography demands qualifications not required for portrait painting. The biographer must be a good showman— sort of literary Barnum—with the knack of showing off his dead lion stuffed with straw, or more attractive material—to the best advantage. Mr. Asqwth says that modern biog-apnies are ponderous and diffuse. He might well have added that they contain too much soap. These peculiarities need occasion no surprise when we considor the conditions under which most works of this sort are produced. A man of more or lass distinction dies. His relations or executors look for a suitable person to write his biography. A fee is arranged and the deceased's papers delivered to the scribe, who proceeds to turn out one, two or more fat and often rather dreary volumes. A comparatively small but brilliant book, containing only a strong tincture of honey ds, however, a better memorial than a diffuse complimentary record of the deceased's life, coupled with an adulatory estimate of his character. Lord Riddell adds that, as a rule, the public are more interested in what the man was than in what he did. Has doings are usually public property. The reader wants to know what sort of man it was who did them. That as the secret of public interest in the personalities of the great. UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE, v When launched in 1912, the British national unemployment scheme embraced about 2£ million workpeople, the weekly benefit for adults being 7s, and the joint weekly contribution of employers and employed 5d and the State contribution 1 2-3 d per week. In 1916 the scheme was extended to other classes of workers who were deemed likely to suffer unemployment immediately after the war. These extensions brought the total number of insured up to about 3} millions. Then in November, 1920, came a far wider extension, which brought the total up to 11J millions. Hie Act was made to apply, with certain exceptions, to all manual workers, and all non-manual workers earning £250 a year or less. The chief exceptions were persons engaged in agricultural or private domestic service, permanent civil servants, and employees of local authorities! and railway companies. At the outset of the expanded scheme weekly rates of benefit began at 15s for men and 12s for women. For a short period in 1921 these rates were raised, but ! since June, 1921, the 15s and 12s rates have gained in force. Weekly contribution rates under the expanded scheme began as follow: —8d for a man and 6Jd for a woman (contributed on equal shares by employers and employed), the State adding a quarter. ■ But since November, 1921, they have been as follows (for men): —Employer, lOd employed, 9d; State, 6gd. These rates of contribution are to remain in force until the unemployment fund has paid off its debt, which at June 30 amounted to £15.600,000. ■» ■ •.' • ' • •' ' UNCOVENANTED BENEFITS. Discussing the question how, far at is justifiable to describe unemployment benefit as a "State dole," the Economist says the justification is small, as not more than one-fourth of the whole cost falls upon the taxpayers. The term "dole" was originally applied to the "out-of-work" donation instituted for a time after the Armistice to cover the , period of violent postwar readjustment. That was a " dole." The Exchequer bore the full cost, and the total amount paid out in the shape of these donations was £61,659,000. The only real justification that can be attempted of calling the present unemployment benefit a "dole" arises in the case of "uncovenanted" benefit. The longcontinued trade depression had the effect that many workers who had steadily paid their contributions suffered so prolonged an unemployment as to exhaust completely their benefit rights. Fresh measures had to be devised to save them from destitution or the Poor Law. So a system of "special periods" of extra or "uncovenanted" benefit were instituted. Ws are at the moment in the early days of the fourth "special period," and it is these renewals of payment of uncovenanted benefit which have told so heavily upon the funds of the unemployment insurance scheme. Technically, people in receipt of uncovenanted benefit are receiving something to which they have not acquired the right by their contributions. Nevertheless, such receipts may be regarded as advances on account of benefits to which they may hope. to acquire the right if and when employment comes their way once more. - Contributory rates for those who are 'employed, as well as for employers and the State, are to be kept at their enhanced level until the fund's debt has been paid off. Thus it may be claimed that, even in the case of uncovenanted benefit, the contributory principle has not been abandoned, and, further, that the finance of the scheme itself ia sound.