UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE IN THE WAR 
AND AFTER 
Tae outbreak of war in August 1914 found the scheme of 
Unemployment Insurance; embodied in Part IT of the National 
Insurance Act of 1911, just settling down into regular operation. 
This scheme was the first serious attempt at compulsory 
insurance against unemployment in any country in the world. 
It had no precedent ; it had been introduced in face of many 
doubts as to whether unemployment could ever be treated 
successfully as an insurable risk; it was avowedly experi- 
mental, with a low scale of benefits and a scope limited 
to manual workers in a few specified trades—building and 
construction of works, engineering, shipbuilding, construction 
of vehicles, and saw-milling. 
For each week of employment in these ‘insured trades’ 
a contribution of 24d. had to be paid by the workmen and an 
equal amount by the employer ; these contributions were paid 
by the employer’s purchasing a 5d. insurance stamp, affixing 
it to an unemployment book carried by the workman, and 
deducting the workman’s contribution from his wages. The 
State added one-third of the joint contributions of the employers 
and workmen, that is, 12d. a week or one-quarter of the total. 
All contributions were paid into an Unemployment Fund 
managed by the Board of Trade. The benefit provided was 
a payment of 7s. a week for fifteen weeks in a year, limited 
turther by the provisos that no one should get more than one 
week’s benefit in respect of every five contributions paid by 
him, and that no benefit should be paid for the first six days 
of any period of unemployment. To obtain benefit the work- 
man had to show that he was unemployed, able to work and 
not able to obtain employment ; these conditions were applied 
in practice by requiring him to claim benefit at a Labour 
Exchange, to sign a register there daily during working hours,