National health insurance.

To the .majority of people interest in Social Insurance begins and ends in stamping cards for their employees, and that interest does not appear to be sufficiently enterprising or inquisitive to examine into the objects for which the cards are stamped or into the causes which make the stamping a necessity. I am aware that the members of the Statistical Society give consideration to such important questions, and I am also aware that many of the members may be considered experts on the subject before us this evening, namely, Social Insurance. Still it appears to me that a short discussion on the question cannot but be beneficial if it would attract the attention of the public and stimulate an interest in Social and Industrial Welfare questions. In a short paper like the present one I cannot hope to do more than touch the fringe of this problem, simply stating the causes which make Social Insurance a necessity, and referring briefly to the remedies so far attempted and to the further lemedies suggested. The primary cause was the acquiescence of the political economists of the early nineteenth century in the principle of self-interest that is their belief that, provided selfishness be enlightened, it is essentially a benevolent economic force which must ultimately always make for the public good. On this fundamental assumption was based their entire creed as to the general beneficence of free competition, of unrestricted liberty of contract whether in the price of goods, the remuneration of labour, the rent of land, or the rate of interest. In fact, they introduced the principles of laissez faire. Free competition where the competitors were not really equal meant the tyranny of the strong over the weak. On the one side were a multitude of unorganised labourers for whom the choice was to starve or to work for what remuneration they could get and under whatever conditions were offered to them; on the other side was a small number of capitalists venose inducement was maximum profit. The hours of labour