EMPLOYERS AND THE INSURANCE BILL. [To THZ EDITOR 07 THZ
" SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your issue of June 17th you print a letter signed " A Manufacturing Engineer." Will you allow me to add my testimony, and point out the burden which the National Insurance Bill will place upon contractors and builders P I have one contract in hand, the time of completion of which is 1916. Going carefully into the probable effects of this measure upon this one job, I find that, assuming the estimated profit is fully secured—and that is a large assumption, for the issue is, of course, in the " lap of the gods "—the amount I shall be called upon to pay will mean an additional income- tax of 3s. 4d. in the £ ; and this is taking the result of the whole job, and not the period of 1912 to 1916 covered by the new tax. If this is taken into account, the amount must be increased by one-fifth, or 8d. in the £ = 4s. If, however, as is often the case, the estimated profit is not secured, the result will be so much worse. Does anyone wonder at the anxiety all English contractors are manifesting to get foreign work, or that the ranks of the unemployed are swollen each winter by
those who a few years ago easily found employment in works of development which were called for by expansion which rested upon confidence in the stability of the country and the justice and saneness of its legislation P—I am, Sir, &c., A CONTRACTOR.
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