Oct. 30.
Sivce Mr. Lloyd George introduced his National Insurance Bill to the House of Commons nearly five months ago, the ground has to some extent been cleared for what is undoubtedly one of the most complicated and far-reaching proposals of modern times. It is this essential magnitude of the scheme, or even of that one portion which deals with sickness, that is responsible for the very general demand for ample time for its discussion. The urgency of some such provision as is proposed for dealing with temporary invalidity and the desirability of making a start with a national campaign for the prevention or cure of tuberculosis has been admitted from the outset by all_ political parties. It is the feeling, engendered by the course of debate and of newspaper comment, that the effects of the Bill, as it stands, are but half understood, even by the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, that is at the bottom of the opposition which has steadily grown in intensity during Committee stage. The opponents of the measure deprecate the avowed intention of the Chancellor to hurry through the discussion in Parliament and to force the Bill upon the country before the end of the present year. They maintain, as Lord St. Aldwyo has pointed oat, that there is not enough individual effort in the country, and too much general benevolence in the House of Commons; and that a Bill which provides for the expenditure of so many millions of the nation's money should be so carefully and deliberately framed as to reduce a minimum the possibility of the inclusion of those who have n0/real,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.