59 
support upon a National Insurance Society, practically 
guaranteed by the State, might be fraught with disastrous 
consequences. It might lessen the feeling of responsibility 
which it shared by a constantly increasing number of the 
working classes of providing their insurance for themselves. It 
might seriously impair that education in thrift and training in 
business which have been brought about by their own associa- 
tions for self-help by the working classes, the value of which to 
the nation it is almost impossible to exaggerate.’ We have yet 
to examine the method first propounded by Canon Blackley. In 
doing so I shall follow the lines laid down by Mr. Tremenheere, 
because his scheme is free from the hoof-mark of State 
subsidization, which disfigures Canon Blackley’s proposition. 
I have been strongly influenced by Mr. Tremenheere’s reason- 
ing, and upon several grounds. For instance, there is not the 
slightest flavour of genteel pauperism about them of 10s. in the 
£ independence, and the fact that the payments required would 
exactly balance the amount expended by Government upon each 
child’s education, when compound interest till the attainment 
of 21 years of age has been added, some £25 in all, lends poetie 
justice to the claim for a return of a portion of each child’s 
wages, in order to secure the State from further responsibilities. 
It would be dishonest, however, to refuse to acknowledge that 
the road mapped out by Mr. Tremenheere is strewn with 
difficulties. No scheme which demanded provision against 
future sickness or the exigencies of old age from a portion only 
of the community, could be considered fair or reasonable, and it 
is certain that any attempt to enforce National Insurance in a 
limited sense would deserve reprobation., The ease with which 
‘‘riches takes to itself wings” is the subject of proverbial remark 
in Lancashire. Who can tell what the whirligig of time may 
bring in forty years from now? and yet, the well-to-do would 
strongly resent the application of enforced provision in their own 
families. On the other hand, many female children, in 
occupation first as nursemaids and afterwards as general 
servants, scarcely earn money enough between the ages named 
in the scheme—14 to 21 years—to provide themselves with 
decent clothing. To a very large number health is precarious 
during this period of life, and as no sick pay could well be 
granted until the attainment of 21 years of age, the pressure 
resulting frem an enforced payment of 1-12th such children’s 
earnings would be extremely heavy. The tax would fall also 
with painful force upon struggling tradesmen. Taking £25 as 
the sum required from each child, and allowing an average of 
four persons per household, the total cost per family would reach 
£100. This sum would enable them to emigrate to one of our 
most distant colonies, with enough money remaining to allow 
