ROYAL COMMISSION ON NATIONAL HEALTH 
INSURANCE. 
REPORT. 
To THE KING'S MosT EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY, 
WE, the undersigned Commissioners appointed under Your 
Majesty’s Royal Warrant of the 11th July, 1924, 
“ to inquire into the scheme of National Health Insurance 
established by the National Health Insurance Acts, 1911-292, 
and to report what, if any, alterations, extensions or develop- 
ments should be made in regard to the scope of that scheme 
and the administrative, financial and medical arrangements 
get up under it’ 
humbly beg leave to report as follows :— 
CHAPTER 1. 
INTRODUCTION. 
PROCEDURE OF THE COMMISSION. 
1. We held our first meeting on the 17th July, 1924, and at 
that meeting considered generally our Terms of Reference and 
also discussed certain preliminary questions of procedure, 
including amongst others that of the expedience of admitting the 
Press and the public to those meetings at which witnesses were 
to tender evidence and submit to examination. We subsequently 
decided that, on a balance of considerations, our work could 
probably be discharged with greater efficiency in the absence of 
those restraints which the presence of the public might impose 
on certain witnesses. In view of the general interest felt in the 
questions submitted to us and of the large sections of the popula- 
tion who might be directly affected by any conclusions at which 
we might arrive, we felt, however, that it was of the utmost 
importance that the widest possible publicity should be given to 
our proceedings, not merely from the point of view of informing 
those immediately concerned, but aiso with the object ‘of 
stimulating further evidence whether by way of comment upon 
or of criticism of, the evidence which might be tendered to wus. 
We accordingly decided that a short summery of the proceedings