The Washington herald., 1921-11-01

upon accldent proVehtlon ana IL II
claimed. reduced the cost Of acci-
dents to employers. The Huber bill
creates a mutual insurance COM
pany which all manufacturing
establishments In the State must
Join. and to which they will pay
premiums varying with their un-
employment rates. The insurance
company is to be managed by the
the State Industrial commission. To
be eligible for compensation for un-
employment an employe must have
worked at least half of the proceed
ing year within the State and must
have been laid of by his employer
for no fault Of his own. The rate
of compensation is $3.50 day for
adults and rs cents for workers
under 10 years of age. The max
imum period for which unemploy-
rnent compensation can be drawn Is
sig weeks for the first three years
of the acts operation and thirteen
weeks thereafter. II this bill Is
passed by the Wisconsin legislature
IL will provide us with another sig
nifican, experiment.
New Schemes initiated.
Meanwhile certain corporations
have initiated schemes of insuring
their employees and stockholders
against the effects Of depression.
Fer example Deering. Millikeu &
Co. set aside two sinking funds to
guarantee a minimum rate of re-
turn to both capital and labor.
Operatives are paid current wages
and investors are allowed per
cent interest on their capital.
When current income exceeds what
Is necessary to meet these charges,
is per cent of the excess earnings
Is put into the sinking fund for
capital and Is per cent into the
unemployment guaranee fund IT
any profits remain after the sinking
funds have been provided for the
surplus Is shared equally between
capital and labor. The capital sink
ing fund. is drawn upon to make
up any deficits below the per cent
interest rate in lean years. The un-
employment guarantee fund Is
used to provide half pay for the
operatives during periods Of unem-
ployment A somewhat similar
scheme has been adopted by the
Dennison Manufacturing Company
and another method of attaining
the same end Is being tried by the
garment manufacturers in Cleve-
land. The latter employers agree
to provide a least twenty weeks
Of full-time work in each half year.
II they fail to provide this much
work they agree to- pay two-thirds
of the wages that would have been
earned in the period of idleness.
with the proviso that their pay
ments for the lost time shall not
exceed 1-2 per cent of the pay
roll. This plan obviously offers a
strong financial incentive to keep
the workers employed.
Besides these direct schemes for
reducing the extent or mitigating
the hardships of unemployment, vari-
Gus monetary and banking reforms
are advocated to reduce the vio-
lence of the cyclical oscillations to
which business is now subject
further GENERALIZATION of the bank
ing system, stabilizing the dollar,
raising interest rates earlier or
more rapidly in periods of pros
perity, and the like. Into the intri-
cate arguments for these proposals
1t is impossible to go here. But one
point should be emphasized. Nearly
all the well considered schemes for
controlling the business cycle,
whatever their line of attack on the
problem. agree in this feature
that the remedy is to be sought by
shifting part of the excess of the
boom into the period of depres-
sion- 1t follows that the best time
for effective preventive action
comes before activity has reached
that wasteful intensity which pro-
duces business stresses and brings
on a crisis. And the best time to
formulate a wise preventive policy
Is time like the present, when the
ills of depression are fresh in mind
and when the problem can be
studied with the necessary care.