NATIONAL INSURANCE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7978, 8 December 1911, Page 6

NATIONAL INSURANCE

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. LONDON, October 27.

The autumn Parliamentary session opened last Tuesday promises to be a stormy one, fraught with danger to tho Government. Tuero is sure to be a big fight over the National Insurance Bill — more's the pity—-for Air Lloyd George's determination to force that measure through Parliament in order to present it is a sort of Christmas box to the people has turned a Bill which was originally submitted to the country on strictly non-political lines into a party measure, which is to be carried t»y a given date by the peremptory decision of the Government of tho day. This decision has been taken in spite of representations made, publicly and privately, to the Government by people who are just as anxious as Air ivloyd Geogj and his colleagues to see a National Insurance Bill on the statute book at the earliest possible date, but who, at the same time., recognise that' tho measure proposed by Air idoyd Gco.gv is not quite tho thing the nation iv-purcs. They do not wish to wreck the Tall, but they demand that am pie time shall be given in Parliament for tho fullest discussion l of the details of what is probably the most far-reaching and intricate Bill that has over been submitted to Parliament.

Public opinion in. regard to tho Government scheme of insurance is at present terribly unsettled. Almost everybody welcomed the measure as a genuine attempt at a great national scheme of social amelioration. Holes were speedily picked in it —very big holes they were —but on all hands the dtsire seemed to bo to improve the measure, not to destroy it. Mr Lloyd George himself was forced to admit that tho debates in Parliament on the first seventeen clauses of his Bill were conducted with tho manifest desire of all parties to improve the measure, and he now admits that when ho launched his Bill he did so with incomplete knowledge, which ho has since improved.. This admission is quite sufficient in the of most people to condemn tho action which he had persuaded the Cabinet to take in invoking tho aid of the guillotine, the use ox which is only deiensiole when there is positive evidence of organised obstruc tion. by a minority to defeat the will of the majority ‘in Parliament. That is not tho case with the Insurance Bill, and Mr Lloyd George's determination to force his measure through by means of closure has ‘*put the backs up" not only of the Opposition but of many of his own party, and of thousands of voters all over l.ho country, who, whilst* in • fullest : sympathy with Mr Lloyd George'* objects, are convinced that those objects can be achieved at a much smaller .cost to the State and to the individual if the Government will only consent to have the Bill examined clause by clause under the glare of unrestricted Parliamentary discussion. Air Lloyd George has openly confessed that ho'has during tho past tew mouths “ learned a good many things that he did not know before," to Ills own profit, and "greatly to tho advantage of the Bill." Authorities on insurance and actuaries of the highest possible standing aver that Mr Lloyd George's education is still very incomplete, and that his Bilk if passed in anything like its present shape, will compel people to pay for insurance benefits which aro of no use to them, and deny them _ those benefits which they have the right to expect from the contributions which the law demands from them. A most trenchant criticism of the Bil • is contained in an anonymous pamphlet recently circulated. Whatever the writer's reason for anonymity, his little brochure contains a remarkable series of reasoned arguments,-all tending to show that many of the -Chancellor’s facts are incorrect, and most of his promises/based on financial fallacies. 1 The writer insists that any solvent friendly society can give its -members the same benefits for 5d as tho Bill gives them for 9d, the balance of 4d not being given at all, as'Mr Lloyd George suggests, in the shape of remunerative benefits, but being either wasted in expenditure which is outside the scope of an scheme or else spent on benefits which the -insured- contributor does not share. Air Lloyd George contemptuously dismisses the author's arguments as actuarially unsound, but Air McLaucblau, the ex-president of the Faculty of Actuaries, a leading authority on- national insurance, endorses them. Tho pamphlet, however, is not a mere mass of destructive criticism, for the author submits a number ' of definite alternative proposals to those contained rn tho Bill, and for which he claims advantages over l those offered by the Ohanccllor.

WHAT THE .WORKED WANTS,

What, in the view of the author of the pamphlet, working people most want ie not the off chance of insurance benefits during, temporary sickness while they are in the prime of life, but substantial provision in their old age when they can no longer work, or, what is the same 'thing, when the can no longer get employment. , The Bill gives them help of this kind. From _ sixty-five to seventy they can get nothing, and up to sixtyfive the most they can hope for is a pension of 5s a week, which will only be given when they are certified to he incapable of doing anything for themselves. Too much of Mr Lloyd George's money is allocated for temporary sick pay, for free doctoring, and for the prevention of sickness during the working lives of the industrial population, while old age pensions for worn out workers, and for widows and orphans left destitute by the death of insured contributors, are altogether left out of reckoning. Altogether the author of the pamphlet makes out a very strong case for the very material alteration of the Government Bill. He clearly shows that unless it is eo amended a large number of workers will be compelled to pay for an insurance which they do not need, while no provision is made for their old age, disablement or premature death. The pamphlet certainly raises the question whether it would not be better oven at this late hour to leave friendly societies and trades unions to deal with temporary sickness, and set up. as the Germans have done, a general compulsory, insurance fund under direct State administration for the purpose of providing adequate old age and widows, and orphans pensions, based on a sliding scale regulated according to the circumstances of the contributor, Mr Lloyd George is not, of course, at all likely to listen to counsel of delay, but if ho persists in his grossed -determination of rushing the Bill through Parliament this wssion, he may very likely find that ho has fomented a rebellion among his own followers, manv of whom are strongly of opinion that Mr Lloyd George's Bill can he vastly improved, and that it should be submitted to an exhaustive discussion in the House of Commons.