TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF STATEAIDED INSURANCE IN GERMANY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13835, 23 February 1907, Page 5

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF STATEAIDED INSURANCE IN GERMANY.

On the 17th of November 25 years had passed sine© the day on which the Emperor William I promised his people the legislation which a few years later created the existing great German system of insurance. A summary of the results of that legislation was published in Soziale Praxis of November 15. About ono German in five is insured for sickness, one in three for accident, and one in four for infirmity or old age. Every v-enr nearly

.£25,000,000 is paid to sick, injured,, in* finij, or old persons. Of this amount £12,600,000 is found by employers, £10,250,000 by insured pereons, and £2,225,000 by tho State. One of the., beneficent arrangements in tho system, of insurance for sickness is that every" insured working woman who is confined receives an allowance for sis weeks.

Tho system for insurance for infirmity has had very remarkable results. It is, of course, very much better for a person who is made infirm by some cause other .than old age, as well as for the community, that lie or she shall, if possible, be enabled to'resume work, than that he or slio shall receive a pension till death; and ,as tho law enables the insurance associations either to treat infirm pereons in hospitals or sanatoria, or to give them pensions, a largo number of hospitals anct sanatoria, have been erected all'over the land. A very large -proportion of the persons who apply for infirmity allowances suffer from tuberculosis. Among men aged from 20 to 24 who are made unable to work by illness, about 5 per cent, suffer from 'it. No less than 74 open-air sanatoria have therefore been' built for the treatment of claimants who suffer from this ono disease. On an average each patient remains under treatment about three months. In 1902, 16,518 persons suffering ' from tuberculosis anil 19,433 suffering from other diseases were treated _ under the insurance law. The proportion of thoso suffering from tuberculosis who regain power to work for a .living is over 75 per cent., but a. good may lose the' power again when they return to their crowded dwellings and to hard work. Yet at tho end of four years from the clo?o of the year in which treatment was received 31 per cent, of the tversons dealt "with aro still ablo to "work. The successes and the failures'have led to a great and vigorous attack on thfl I causes of consumption and other diseases, in schools, workshops, and dwellings, and to earnest efforts to ' lessen tho use of alcohol.and to provide wholesome forms of recreation for young and old.. The German system of insurance received the highest award which was given, at tho St. Louis Exhibition, and : the Imperial Commissioner attributes this to the.fact that it proved the superiority of compulsory to voluntary treatment. The system has shown, he'says, that by far the greater number ..of the persons who are injured] during their work can be restored to health by timely and appropriate treatment, and that tho millions spent on the treatment pay abundant interest/ ag the education .and training ,of every oSective working person cause tlie nation expense, which is normally mado, good by the productiveness of his or her work, while economical Ices is inrolved in the premature ending of his or her woik-i , ing power. He adds that German, experience shows that compulsory insurance is being more and more transformed. from a system of cure to a system of prevention.;' but that, but for the establishment of compulsory insurance, it would' hardly have been possible to take, so quickly and on so large a scale; measures against consumption, diseases caused by • licentious* ness, misuse of -alcohol, tod dwellings, and other evils. That the introduction of compulsory insurance has not brought selfhelp in Germany below the English level is shown by the statistics relating to sav-ings-biuiks. In the years 19034 the amount of money in those banks per head of the population was for poorv Prussiai £10 10s 6d, and for rich England £4 15s 7d.