Review of Reviews, SO [2/86. 



Leading Articles, 



179 



STATE INSURANCE FOR WORKING MEN. 



Why Not Imitate Germany? 



Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip contributes a very lucid 

 paper to the North American Review for December 

 on " Insurance for Working Men." 



Mr. Vanderlip says that the Germans are unani- 

 mously in favour of their system, but they do not 

 think the Americans are honest enough to work it. 

 It has made the German working man more prac- 

 tical and less hostile to the State. 



(1) INSURANCE AGAINST SICKNESS. 



The insurance against sickness is contributed two- 

 thirds by workmen and one-third by their employers. 

 Mr. Vanderlip says: — 



The activities in the sick insurance field are not confined 

 to the mere payment of the indemnity during a period 

 of illness. The sick insurance not only makes it possible 

 for a workman who is ill to take at once the necessary 

 time for recovery, but it provides him with the best medi- 

 cal attention while he is ill; and, while in health, it 

 gives hygienic supervision and instruction which are of 

 the greatest value in preventing sickness. Under the opera- 

 tion of this system, there is being snent, in the most in- 

 telligent manner, something like 50,000,000 dols. a year in 

 the treatment and care of the sick. The testimony in 

 regard to the value of the work done in the sick insur- 

 ance system is almost universally favourable. It would 

 be hard to calculate its economic importance, but it is so 

 great that it has become one of the leading factors in 

 helping Germany to the industrial pre-eminence which 

 she is gaining. 



12) INSURANCE AGAINST ACCIDENTS 



Employers are charged with the entire burden of 

 maintaining the accident insurance fund: — 



Accident insurance, as developed in Germany, has been 

 something more than merely the providing of an in- 

 demnity. It has been, in fact, an insurance against ac- 

 cident. This definite placing of the responsibility for 

 accidents has led to much study by employers and em- 

 ployees of reflations providing for safeguards. Such study 

 has accomplished remarkable results in the reduction of 

 the number of accidents, and has become a great economic 

 factor in removing the danger from the industrial calling. 

 Under the influence of this study the frequency of acci- 

 dents has been rednced one-half. Viewed from ah economic 

 standpoint alone, the saving which has resulted in the 

 national economy has been a vast sum. 



(3) INSURANCE AGAINST OLD AGE. 



Working men in Germany have to pay from 3d. to 

 7|d. per week insurance money. After they are 

 seventy years old they receive an annuity of from 

 £$ 10s. to ^12 per annum. This is regarded with 

 dissatisfaction. The working men want payment 

 to begin at sixty-five. The employers contribute 

 to the fund an amount equal to that contributed by 

 the workmen. The Government pays a subsidy 

 which nearly covers the whole cost of administra- 

 tion. 



THE COST OF ADMINISTRATION. 



Mr. Vanderlip says: — 



Not only are there three distinct, systems of insurance, 

 but there are complications of Government participation 

 in the funds and of a division of the authority of adminis- 

 tration between Government officials and some twenty-five 

 thousand local organisations. Twenty millions of Ger- 

 many's fifty-six millions of population are eligible to these 

 benefits: and the cost of administration falls al'ke on 

 these beneficiaries and upon all other citizens of the Em- 

 pire. The total receints from its oreanisntion iin to the 

 end of this year will have aggregated almost 2.000,000,000 

 dols. The receipts this year will approximate 150,000.000 



dols. A satisfactory feature of the German State insur- 

 ance system is that the benefits paid out correspond 

 very closely with the premiums paid in. The expense of ad- 

 ministration, considering the enormous number of indi- 

 viduals concerned, and the fact that weekly contributions 

 are collected from employees, is surprisingly small. It 

 averages under nine per cent. 



I do not believe the German system could be transplanted 

 here in anything like its entirety. I am, however, per- 

 fectly confident that those features of the German system 

 pertaining to sick and accident insurance are of enormous 

 value to the national economy, and are producing results 

 out of all proportion to their cost. 



HOW OTHERS SEE US. 



English Idiosyncrasies. By W. D. Howells. 



In the North American Review for December Mr. 

 W. D. Howells continues his entertaining description 

 of English Idiosyncrasies. 



" DESPERATELY PERFECT,'' BUT COLD. 



English life, says Mr. Howells, 



is wonderfully perfected. With a faery dream of a king 

 supported in his pre-eminence by a nobility, a nobi;it\- 

 supported in turn by a commonalty, a commonalty sup- 

 ported again by a proletariat resting upon immeasurable 

 ether; with a system of government kept by assent so 

 general that the dissent does not matter- in the hands of 

 a few families reared, if not trained, to power; with a 

 society so intimately and thoroughly self-acquainted that 

 one touch of gossip makes its whole world kin, and re- 

 sponsive to a single emotion; with a charity so wisely 

 studied and so carefully applied that restive nrsery never 

 quite grows rebellious; with a patriotism so inborn and 

 ingrained that all things English seem righteous because 

 English; with a willingness to share the general well- 

 being quite to the verge, but never beyond the verge, of 

 public control of the administration ; with all this the 

 thing must strike the unbelieving observer as desperately 

 perfect. "They have got jt down cold," he must say to 

 himself, and confirm himself in his unfaith by reflecting 

 that it is very cold. 



ENGLISH VERSUS AMERICAN SYSTEM. 



Mr. Howells says that the English system is more 

 logical than the American, but not so reasonable, 

 being based on inequality and the rule of the few: — 



The Englishmen of whose disrespect we can make surest 

 are those who expect to achieve liberty, equality, and fra- 

 ternity in the economic way, the political way having 

 tailed; who do not care whether the head of the State is 

 born or elected, is called "King" or called "President.' 

 since he will presently not be at all, who abhor war, 

 and believe that the meek shall inherit the earth, and 

 these only if they work for a living. They have already 

 had their will with the existing English State, until now- 

 thai State is far more the servant of the people in fetch- 

 ing and carrying, in guarding them from hard masters 

 and succouring them in their need, than the Republic 

 which professes to derive its just powers from the consent 

 of the governed. When one encounters this sort of English- 

 man, one thinks Bilentlv of the child labour in the S>uth. 

 of the monopolies in the North, of the companies which 

 govern while they serve us. and one hopes that the English- 

 man is not silently thinking of them too. My impression 

 is that most of the most forward of the English Siciolo' 

 regard America as a back number in those political econo- 

 mics which imply equality as well as liberty in the future. 



ENGLISH CIVTLITY AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 



Mr. Howells says that in England the rule of 

 civility is so universal that the politeness from class 

 to class is, from what the stranger sees, all but un- 

 failing. Even the manners of the lower class, where 

 they have been touched by the upper, have been 

 softened and polished to the same consistence and 

 complexion. The English rustics almost universally 

 believe in ghosts. In charity he thinks the English 



