The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-07-19
Feigned Illness Is
 Great Problem Of
 English Insurance

I London, July 19.-If all men were perfectly honest schemes like the Lib- | eral Government Insurance Act might | be ideal schemes. But the few months in which the act has been in opera I tion have shown that many English men cannot resist temptation. The amount of feigned illness among the
 insured is becoming a great scandal. 1 In this respect Great Britain is re- | beating the experience of Germany, 1 which furnished the model for the Lloyd George bill. The Germans have | invented a new word for the illness | of the government insured, and some 1 similar word will be needed in Eng J land soon.
 1 Some employers who pay small | wages find that the number of em-
 ployes absent from work on account | of alleged illness is from twice to ten 1 times the number under former condi- 1 tions, before workmen and women 1 were assured, of ten shilling a week whenever they laid off. The doctors | agree that there is an enormous 1 amount of naIingering, but have not
 yet discovered any cure. Many people | consider that a week of leisure, with an income of ten shillings, is a justf- | fable holiday. When the official doc tor asserts that they are not i'll they 1 begin to denOunce the act aL fraud, and make political capital of it. Con servative newspapers are only too will ing to print complaints fro n1the in sured that the insurance act is a fail ure.
 Fourteen million people are now paying. their weekly contributions, Ticking stamps the governments opponents say derisiveIy. Undoubted-
 ly many of them find fault with the administration of the act, and prob ably some amendments will be found I
 cry day. An employer has written to | the papers explaining that an employe had been four or five months in jail charged with murder. The trial re- suited in acqu1ttaL The employer
 wants to take back the man, but l surance contributions for the time of detention in jail. The act says noth- 1 ing on that point.
 For the time opposition to the in
 surance scheme, or rather criticism of it, is the principal political capital of the Conservative party. Home Rule
 and Welsh Dfsestabltshment have talk en back seats as targets for attack But while Conservatives declare that
 compulsory insurance is failure
 their leaders do not go so far as to
 urge repeal. It is unpopular with many people, but whether 1t is not
 popular with the great majority of the insured is still an open question.
 A discussion as to whether London CTS die out with the third generation, often asserted, has been taking place in the daily papers. One paper suggested that it would be difficult to find a Londoner of the fourth gem eration and as a result has received many curious pedigrees. Some of them date back two hundred years, with a great-great-gran born in the place where the descendant Ra of fI1RGa a from districts where trades are hand ed down from father to son, and in almost all of them it was found that the present generation were carrying on the businesses established by their ancestors. It has been pointed out however, that the Londoners who
 make London have been drawn from the country to the city, where they do not last long.
 Sir William Os1er, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, has been voic- ing the opinion of the medical pro- fegsion at the inadequacy of the hos pital accommodation in England and com pairing unfavora bly, the voluntary system in vogue here with the sys- tenn in America and Canada, where all hospitals accept paying patients. Throughout the United Kingdom the hospitals accept no pay from their patients, with the result that they are crowded with those who cannot afford to pay, and in many cases are par tiaIly closed because the lack of funds will not allow all the beds to be occu- pied, while people who could afford to pay somet1ing have to go to nur- sing homes, which are in most eases very expensive, or be nursed at home The result, according to doctors with large practices, is that only the very poor or the very rich get proper med ical attention.
 One of the possibilities of the re- turn of the Liberals to power in Aus tralia,' where they secured a, majority of one over the Labor party in the Lower House, is that the plans for the new capitol at Canberra may be alter ed. The design was opposed by the Liberals when in opposition, and the architects of Sydney have memoraI- ized the new premier to set it aside. Of course the Liberals are not yet firmly established in office, for they have to appoint a speaker, which would leave them with exactly the same strength on the floor of the House as that of the Laborites, who also have majority in the Upper MT. McMillan, a Eaernber of the Sen ate, was appointed Maaisser of De fense, as it will be his duty to attend the proposed naval conference at Van couver, where the future naval policy on the Pacific, will be decided. The ministry will also continue the prefer ential negotiations with Canada.
 Since the extension of Compulsory military service to non-M -Moslems. there