NATIONAL PROVIDENT FUND.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 14960, 7 January 1919, Page 7

NATIONAL PROVIDENT FUND.

BESERVE-Otf £250,000

fUnited Press Association.]

Auskfanct, Jan. 3. The Hnn. Arthur flyers, Minister in charge of the National Provident Fund, ma do an interesting statement in lef err Ing t-o the position oi: the fund and its work during the last few years. He said that a review of the hind's operations for the four years of the war showed that, notwithstanding tho adverse conditions prevailing for business of this description, the membership had been substantially increased and the fund's revenue placed on a basis that assured its national future. The membership was now about i-i,OOO, and the reserve fund amounted to close on £250,000. Mr M^ers went on to say that the recent epidemic has brought out in a very striking manner the value of the fund as a social insurance factor in the lire of the community. The number* of plaims that Had come 'before the Department on account of deaths due to influenza during the last few weeks indicated how necessary it was tiiat peo--pie should become contributors to such a valuable and .beneficent fund. Where the breadwinner had been lost the fund was now available for the contributor's widow and children. in one case a widow and young family would draw an estimated aggregate sum of Close on £']()oi.i from the fund by way of benefits, although at the time of the contributor's death the total contributions' of £13 paid by him had -been more than exceeded by benefits received during Jiis lifetime.. In another case the aggregate payments to the widow and "children would amount to over £1000, the net contributions paid during.the contributors lifetime being £12, while in some I instances, unfortunately, the five years' membership qualification had not" been! quite completed and the fund's benefits' could not be granted. The actual pay-j able claims illustrated one of the main purposes for which this fund was established. Experience during the Hst two months in connection with these oases, while it occasioned regret that a greater number of families throughout the Dominion were not insured" against iho sudden loss of their, support, would Humiliate action in the direction of further and wider extension of this form oi preventive insurance.