THE INSURANCE BILL

Otago Witness, Issue 3100, 13 August 1913, Page 23

THE INSURANCE BILL

THE MATERNITY BENEFIT

LONDON, August 6

The House of Commons is engaged in discussing the Grand Committee’s amendments to the insurance Bill. The Labour party strongly objected to panic legislation over the maternity benefit because there were a few bad husbands. In an animated debate several- Liberals and Conservatives claimed that the benefit ought definitely to be made the wife s property. An amendment was carried by 186 votes to 177 allowing the husband to receive the money if the wife authorised it. August 7. The Government left maternity an open question, and this led to great contusion over the division in the lobbies. The Grand Committee’s resolution proposed to give the benefit solely to the mother, but the trades unions considered this an insult to 99 out of every 100 husbands. The Grand Committee rejected Mr Roberts’s amendment allowing a husband s receipt to suffice, but on the report stage Mr Roberta's amendment was carried, practically restoring the original Act. Many of the Nationalists by mistake walked into the wrong lobby.

August 10. The Board of Trade’s first report on unemployed insurance in four scheduled trades shows there were about two millions and a-lvalf unemployed insured during the year, where previously only one-fifth were insured. The employers’, the workmen’s, and the State’s contributions aggregated £2,400,000, and the expenditure £700,000. The scheme was accepted generally without much trouble.