The Southland Times MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1944. Social Insurance in Britain

Southland Times, Issue 25483, 2 October 1944, Page 4

The Southland Times MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1944. Social Insurance in Britain

THE occasions in history when a complete social code has been worked out and applied are very few. The statesmen of the days of Queen Elizabeth found themselves the inheritors of many troubles, and it was not until the end of the period that all the attempts to grapple with the poor law problem were gathered together in a comprehensive act which was to be the basis of social legislation for a couple of hundred years. The end of the eighteenth century found a like need, and tentative and unsatisfactory attempts to solve the problem by subsidized -wages ■ and outdoor relief were followed in 1834 by the establishment of central control and the workhouse as the only institution for the provision of relief. A reviving industry and the railway age made it possible for the new system to work; the unemployed were largely absorbed in the new developments. Later years of the nineteenth century saw the coming of periodic commercial crises in the field of industry. The unemployed were large in numbers, and they were not working, not because they did not want to do so, but because of the reduced demand for labour in bad times. Here was another new situation, and for some time it was not regarded as the appropriate function of the Government to attempt to grapple with it. Instead, relief in the recurrent depressions was provided in meagre fashion by the charitable funds of the time and by the municipal authorities of the larger towns and cities. The early years of this century saw the publication of a Poor Law Report, prepared after four years of study by a Royal Commission and its experts. From it grew the labour exchanges and the unemployment insurance system, which was applied as a compulsory measure to some of the leading industries. But various recommendations of the commission were in advance of their time. It took almost 40 years to see a long-term programme of public works accepted as a necessary part of a modern Government’s armoury to fight depression. Between the two wars the bitter period of the dole and the means test saw a gradual feeling of the way towards another comprehensive effort at a solution of the problems of the new age. Tentative steps were taken in the early thirties, in the provision of school meals for poorer children and free milk or cheap milk for those whose means did not permit adequate consumption at the standard price. In 1942 Sir William Beveridge, famous throughout the academic world as an expert student of the unemployment problem, and equally expert as an administrator during the Great War, produced his report and the Beveridge plan to abolish want in Britain. The preliminary debate ledito some measure of acceptance of his proposals by the Britsh Government, and now after almost two years a White Paper expresses the determination of the authorities to adopt a scheme which embodies many of his principles and suggestions. New Social Policy

Lord Woolton has stated that these proposals indicate “the. Government’s determination to wage war against poverty in peacetime.” This will give expression to a new conception of social policy. Two great authorities, known best to the world as Sydney and Beatrice Webb, called the old Poor- Law in its harshness and its tendency to blame the poor for their own poverty, a “framework of repression.” They spoke of the developments of this century as leading towards the adoption of a “framework of prevention.” While it would be too much to say that the new scheme does all that may be necessary, •it marks the end of a period of groping and the beginning of one in which a new policy will be applied. Under it everyone will contribute and everyone will be eligibleto receive the benefits, which cover a very wide range, from sickness to invalidity, from injury to unemployment, as well as grants for destitution and retirement. Maternity grants and family allowances are in rather a different category. The proposal is for a cash allowance of five shillings a week for- each child except the first, evidently irrespective of income, but the benefit is to be greater than that. According to the cabled statement “school meals and a milk service will be free.” In this there are two important implications. One is the cash equivalent of the meals and the milk for five days a week, which will surely not be inconsiderable. The other is the probable benefit to health which is likely to follow the provision of adequate milk and balanced meals. Already during this century the incidence of rickets in Britain’s industrial areas has been reduced to an astonishing extent, and there has been an appreciable increase in the average height of the population. A few years ago the provision of a “milk sei-vice” would have been considered by many as an extreme form of socialization. The exigencies of total war have revolutionized many ideas, and it is no longer regarded as unusual that the State should see that an adequate amount of certain essential foodstuffs is available for everyone. To this extent at least benefit has been derived from the trials of war and the realization that a possibly smaller supply of more suitable food is beneficial to the nation’s health. Whatever its defects may be, this measure will place Britain once more in the vanguard of socially progressive countries. It shows that her statesmen have accepted the wider conception of the functions of the State which are apparently necessary today: the adoption of a comprehensive economic policy and a plan whereby all citizens while earning may provide collectively for their social needs.