[TO THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTATOR." j Sra,—The attack
upon the National Insurance Bill which appeared in your issue of September 30th with the title "Political Bribery" reads strangely in a journal which (as you state) at the outset welcomed the Bill as "a real step towards bringing home to those sections of the population who have hitherto neglected to make proper provision for the accidents of life the necessity to do so." It reads strangely because so far as the purposes which appear to have com- mended the Bill to you in the first instance are concerned no change or modification whatever has been introduced during the Committee stage hitherto.
The gravamen of your grievance appears to be that in his endeavour to make the proposals and implications of the Bill as clear as possible to those whom it is desired to benefit, and from large sections of whom considerable sacrifice will be demanded, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has stated that the workman's contribution of fourpence will have a benefit value of ninepence. Yet this is the plain fact, and I cannot understand why anyone should desire to weaken or obscure it. At the outset many of the insured will receive benefits of higher value than ninepence, while in other cases the value will be lower, but the average value will be as stated. That benefits so liberal can be offered to the insured at so low a cost to themselves is, of course, due to the fact that the employers and the State are asked to contribute between them a sum of seventeen millions a year. May I remind you that the Home of Commons has already fixed the contribution by the State, and has accepted in principle the employers' obligation to contribute?
You speak of the seventeen millions a year which the em- ployers and the State are asked to contribute for the purpose of improving and safeguarding the health of the workers as "bribery." Is this, however, a justifiable use of words P Not only are grants of public money now made to certain sections of the population in direct relief of taxation in this country, but our elementary education, free library, and poor rates are largely paid by persons who do not use the provision offered; yet I doubt whether the Spectator would regard these arrangements as immoraL Why, then, should a benefaction to the working classes, for the sake of advantages which are not merely per- sonal to them, but will promote the national welfare and efficiency in many directions, be stigmatized as " bribery " p In your desire to belittle the Insurance Scheme you draw a .4omparison between the benefits which a workman will receive
for his 4d. a week under the Bill with those which are offered by one of the great friendly societies for 90., and come to the totally unproved conclusion that "what the average man will get is something worth perhaps 5d." Here you ignore the fact that the Bill offers benefits which are not given by the friendly societies at all, and that the State scale of benefits, liberal though it now is, is an increasing scale, while it is notorious that the present friendly society contributions are becoming increasingly inadequate to meet the benefits which they nominally cover.
You even endeavour to create prejudice against the Bill by stating that it will involve" enormous expenditure for adminis- tration . . . estimated at something like three farthings per contributor per week," evidently not knowing that the ordinary friendly society member now pays about a penny a week for management.
Your references to the position of the doctors and the friendly societies under the Bill are very incomplete. You assert that "the status of a large portion of the medical pro- fession will be lowered." In reply I would ask : Can it be derogatory to the doctors that they will henceforth work under the local health committees (upon which they will have adequate representation), as they desire to do ; that they will receive terms more liberal than have been offered hitherto by the friendly societies save in exceptional oases; that ill-paid work and bad debts amongst the poor will be greatly diminished ; that all doctors will have an equal right to participate in insurance practice; and that for the first time every " club " doctor will attend the patients who have freely chosen him, instead of having his patients formally v..esigned to him P Nor is your statement that the friendly societies are to be degraded into" little more than conduit pipes for the convey- ance of State charity" any more defensible. It is true that the House of Commons, by an almost unanimous yol decided that, for reasons which are fairly summarized in Mr. Worthington Evans's handbook on the Insurance Bill, it would be expedient to transfer the administration of al medical benefits to the Local Health Committees, instead of dividing it between different and differently constituted organizations. Nevertheless, the approved societies will have a majority upon the Local Health Committees, which 1\ ill simply discharge on their behalf functions which, under the new conditions, could not be discharged with equal efficiency, if at all, by the societies independently. It is also true, as you say, that the workpeople's contributions are to be col- lected by the employers—an indispensable condition of com- pulsory insurance at the joint cost of workman and employer —but it is necessary to add that these contributions will be handed over to the societies for investment.
With these exceptions the Bill leaves the friendly societies for practical purposes as they are. They will retain to the full their present powers of self-government ; they will con- tinue to admit and expel members according to their rules; besides receiving and investing the contributions of their members they will retain unconditional control over their a-cumulated funds, and will receive and administer without interference all contributions which their members choose to pay beyond the payment required by the State scheme—in other words probably one-half of their present income ; they will retain in full membership all persons above the age of sixty-five ; the care of the permanently disabled will be in their hands except to the extent that medical attendance and sanatorium treatment will be provided by the Local Health Committees ; while, finally, the existing contact between the societies and their members will be continued by means of periodical meetings, sick visitation, provision for the produc- tion of cards at stated intervals, &c.—I am, Sir, &c., W. B.ARBUTT DA.WSON.
[We cannot find space to reargue the points here raised, but print our correspondent's letter in order that all sides should have a hearing in our columns.]
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