MAJORITY REPORT. 
been possible to get the information to the Society in more than 
a minute fraction of cases. As the cases of lump sum payments 
are now covered otherwise, as the result of the passing of the 
Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923, and the cases of weekly 
payments at less than 15s. a week are relatively unimportant, 
I suggest to the Commission that Section 16 (1) (¢) of the Act 
might now be repealed.” (Q. 23,462.) 
631. We concur in the suggestion made to us on this point 
and recommend accordingly that Section 16 (1) (¢) of the Act 
should be repealed. 
INQUIRIES INTO EXCESSIVE SICKNESS. 
632. When the Insurance Act was originally passed few 
sections attracted more attention than that which was designed 
to establish machinery whereby financial liability might be fixed 
on a local authority or an employer, held to have been guilty 
of default leading to unsatisfactory health conditions and con- 
sequent excessive payments of sickness or disablement benefit. 
This was regarded as establishing a hopeful new principle 
whereby the consequences of neglect might be brought home to 
the negligent with beneficial results to the public health at large. 
633. Section 107 of the present Act lays down the pro- 
cedure to be followed where an Approved Society or Insurance 
Committee makes an allegation that excessive expenditure on 
sickness and disablement benefits is attributable to some default 
cn the part of a Local Authority or an employer. The Section 
falls naturally into two parts. In the first place it provides 
machinery for instituting an investigation to determine whether 
the Society’s allegation of unsatisfactory conditions is well 
founded ; and secondly, it enacts that where as a result of such 
investigation, it is found that the unsatisfactory conditions do in 
fact exist and have been the cause of excessive benefit 
expenditure, a penalty shall be imposed on the responsible Local 
Authority or employer by requiring them to pay to the Society 
the estimated amount of the excess expenditure due to their 
default. 
634. We have been informed in evidence (Brock, Q. 1470, 
1491-1498) that the Section has not proved to be workable, and 
we understand that there are two outstanding difficulties in 
giving effect to its provisions :— 
(1) As Approved Societies are seldom organised on a 
geographical basis, it is very difficult, if not impossible, 
to establish from their records the sickness experience among 
insured persons in a particular locality. 
(2) Even if it were possible to establish the experience of 
a particular locality it would not be possible to disentangle