SOCIAL INSURANCE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19049, 30 June 1924, Page 4

SOCIAL INSURANCE

Very few people realise what colossal sums are being spent on all forms of social insurance in Great Britain annually. The sums arc simply staggering: Old-age pensions, £22,500,000; health, maternity, and disablement, £29,000,000; unemployment, £60,000,000; workmen’s compensation, £12,000,000; burial insurance, £35,000,000; total, £158,500,000. There is a demand for the extension of the scope of social insurance. There is an urgent need for its unification. Extension may take the form of increasing the number of emergencies covered. Provision against widowhood and orphanhood may be made. Non-industrial accidents may become insurable; burial might be included in a comprehensive system. Again, social insurance may be extended to cover work-people and others with an insonic, say, below £3OO ■_ er annum. It is powerfully urged that social insurance should provide against hazards not only of an insured workman, but also of his dependents. Lastly, it is contended that the rate of benefits today is so small as to make them of little value. Moreover, there are numerous anomalies. History alone can explain why provision is made for the workman who suffers an industrial accident, and not the workman who suffers a non-industrial accident, why a workman who suffers an accident whilst on an errand for his employer may obtain 30/- a week for life, while if he is on his way to a restaurant he may become a pauper for life. The plight of the unprovided widow and orphan is Iworsc than that of the workman temporarily unemployed, but no provision is made for the former, and considerlable sums arc spent on the latter, iAgain, it may be asked why should [the employer be expected to bear un- | aided the burden of industrial accident 'insurance, and the workman of burial !insurance? Why should the State provide the costs of old-age pensions, whilst it shares with employers and workpeople the costs of unemployment insurance and vhealth insurance? Or, ’again, why are old-age, ill-health, and (unemployment treated as national 'problems, and widowhood and orphanhood as problems for the local authorities? A writer in the Contemporary [Review, after summarising these anomalies and emphasising the stupendous , burden which in their aggregate they impose upon the taxpayers of the Mother Country, urges that the time has come when the nation must pursue a ’ course that will extend the scope of . social insurance and result in a growing unification of the various schemes. . That is a policy which these younger , countries would do well to follow, so , that the ideal of a universal superannu- ’ ation system based on an equitable system of universal contribution may be the sooner attained.