National Insurance Progress
The National Insurance Bill, now at the Report stage in the Commons, continues on its royal road gathering garlands on almost all sides. It could hardly be otherwise with a measure which pro- vides for security against sickness, unemployment and old age. Yet the cost to the individual contributor-4s. rid, a week—is rather near the margin at which the employed man begins to wonder whether it is worth it. Undoubtedly this is a short-sighted and wrong view, but short sight is the common factor in decisions about future benefits, and it would undoubtedly lead to a certain amount of contracting out if the opportunity existed. This tendency is more marked and better justified in the case of self-employed persons, who have to pay 6s. 2d. for the same benefits, for the very doubtful reason that the Exchequer subsidy of about Is. rd. which goes to employers who employ other people is not payable to employers who employ themselves. This is more like sharp practice than social justice. The case for allowing the friendly societies to retain something like their old functions in the administration of the new measure is far weaker. There is no fundamental reason why the alleged interest of contributors in the personal touch in the distribution of benefits should not be met by State employees as well as by the employees of very large independent organisations. Moreover, the thousands of officials who will lose their jobs are most likely, after the first cold plunge, to find themselves better off elsewhere, the present demand for labour being what it is. Nevertheless, the nineteenth-century allegorical-rococo banners of the friendly societies are not likely to go down except amid the din of a final battle.
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