IR 
MAJORITY REPORT. 
charge ultimately falls upon the resources of the nation. To that 
extent it necessarily reduces the possibility of imposing further 
large burdens for the purpose of promoting the national health. 
So long as funds available are limited there can, in our opinion, 
be no doubt as to the question whether expenditure should in the 
first place be directed towards the further promotion of health 
or to the provision of maintenance. For health and maintenance 
are not competing claimants for public expenditure. They are 
indeed closely related. Without maintenance there can be no 
health ; it would be futile to seek to promote the health of those 
without the means of life. Those who are unemployed, their 
wives and their children must be fed, clothed and housed. Having 
regard to the existing provision for the promotion of health made 
by the Local Authorities and under the Insurance Scheme, large 
additions to the cash benefits and wide expansions of the scope 
of medical treatment, however desirable in themselves, must, in 
our opinion, definitely take a second place to the provision of the 
primary means of life. 
HuALTH INSURANCE AND CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS CHARGES. 
141. The present appropriation for National Health Insurance 
is about #£39,000,000 a year. The charge is spread over the 
employers, the employed persons, and the State, in the follow- 
ing way: employers, £14 millions; employed persons, 
£13 millions ; the State, £7 millions. The balance of £5,000,000 
is derived from interest on accumulated funds. But the total 
sum, from whatever source it may be immediately derived, is 
ultimately a charge on the productive capacity of the country. 
Similarly the Widows’, Orphans’, and Old Age Contributory 
Pensions Act, which has just come into operation, involves imme- 
diate annual charges of £11 millions, £11 millions, and 
£4 millions respectively on the three members of the co-partner- 
ship, a total of £26,000,000. Thus for the three schemes of 
social insurance now in operation, the total annual charge on the 
productive powers of the country is £115 millions, of which the 
charce on the Excheauer is about £24 millions. 
THE BURDEN OF OTHER SOCIAL SERVICES. 
142. The latest figures available from the Return annually 
submitted to Parliament showing the cost of public social services 
in Great Britain indicate that the expenditure on services other 
than those on an insurance basis is approximately as follows :—