The leader-enterprise. [volume] (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1912-1915, 1913-12-24

in good health and good heart, said
Mr.. Smith, which relieves him from
the necessity of working when he is
physically unfit to work and frees him
in the case of illness from worry as to
the future, must increase the efficiency
of labor. In no way can this be done
so cheaply as by scientific system OF
insurance such as the act provides.
The increased efficiency of the worker
will be far in excess of the total cost
of insurance under the scheme. AS
employers pay only small part Of the
cost, it may be anticipated that they
will in the long run receive benefits
far out-weighing their contributions.
Relieves Undeserved Poverty.
''In Judging the act" continued Mr..
Smith, you must not consider it as
final measure. 1t is only start
though good start-in the campaign
for establishing a minimum standard
of living and comfort below which no
Briton shall fall, unless it be through
deliberate fault of his own. To prop
erly judge this act you must regard 1t
as part only of a wider program for
dealing with the preventable causes of
poverty and unemployment and rails
ing the standard of living for the work
ing classes in this country. Poverty
and unemployment have existed and
still exist in every country and under
every form of government. Like dis
ease and death, they cannot be wholly
banished by act Of parliament. The
insurance act strikes at certain causes
of poverty and unemployment which
are preventable. In conjunction with
the workmen's compensation acts, the
old age pensions act, the public health
acts, and the factory acts, all measures
of social reform, which seek to make
tomorrows world better than our
world today, the insurance act endeav-
ors to remove poverty and distress due
to accident, sickness, infrmity, old
age, insanitary workshops and IN
healthy dwellings. 1t attacks the slum
owner, penalties the sweater and
makes the health of the people the
first care of the state. It lays broad
and firm the foundations Of new So
cial policy-a policy of mutual help
and good will among all members of
the community, based upon a recogni-
ton of the fact that the undeserved
poverty or undeserved unemployment
of the humblest member of society is
something which closely affects the
general well-being OF the state"
And Mr.. Calvert, who represents not
Liberal-Labor constituency, but the
city which employs labor, gave en-
phatic assent.
10000 Get Sick Benefit Weekly.
Some things are certain in regard to
the acts workings. About 100000
persons in Great Britain and Ireland
are now insured against sickness,
when before the act there were about
6,OOO,OOO. The act raised the first year
$13O,000,O0O. OF this amount the work
men contributed $55,0O0,000, Twenty
thousand doctors are employed to give
free medical treatment and nine thou
sand chemists-who are the British
oruggists-furnish free drugs, pre-
scr1bed by these doctors. To the poor
est workingman is given the same
medical treatment and the same pure
medicines and drugs as the richest
duke can afford. About $25,000,000 has
been paid during the year to doctors
and S5,O0O,OO0 to chemists. Sickness
benefits are paid weekly to 100000
workers. The men get $3.50 a week
and the women $1.75 a week, because
they pay less.
Maternity benefits amounting to ST.
100000 have been paid. The birth
rate has at least not been discouraged.
For tuberculosis sanatoriums has been
set aside $8,000,000. Twenty-Five thou
sand workmen have been treated IN
der the act, $4,000 in sanatoriums
These are the figures, but for the real
facts as to the benefits brought by
the act one must note the changed
conditions in the workingmen's homes,
see the cures wrought, the shadows
LrCed. No man or woman in the
United Kingdom need lack, under this
act, insurance against Sickness unem-
pioyment or the unmerited poverty
which, to the underpaid, so frequently
comes with old age.
But is this not queer business for
great empire?
Let the best-hated and bestowed
statesman in Great Britain, the author
OF the national Insurance act, David
Lloyd-George, make reply:
adds New Glory to Empire"
'Since 1908, when we had old age
pensions for the first time, we have
had a great empire for the first time
taking a direct interest in the condi-
ton of those aged, those infrm, those
sick, and those broken. The old the
ory was that this was beneath the dig
nifty Of an empire. The concern of an
empire was to see that the machinery
of human slaughter was perfect. That
was the concern of an empire. To tax
the food of the people, that is think
ing imperially; but to heal the sick,
to feed the hungry, these are thoughts
tit only for parish beadle. There was
great emperor once who added to
the luster of his fame by visiting the
wounded after tho hottIo Now 1uo