MINORITY REPORT. ST I. tion of cash benefits without the slightest relationship to public activities affecting the need for these benefits. 56. We accept the principle laid down by the Majority Report as to ** the desirability of bringing into closer relationship the various services directed towards the prevention of sickness and the improvement of health.” We submit that this is impossible while one essential health service is left unattached ; and we recommend the substitution of Societies under appropriate Local Authorities, which would apparently be the County Councils and County Borough Councils, for the present system of Approved Societies. 57. Tt seems to us that substantially each of these groups would be fairly representative of the industrial population of the country, but in so far as they were not equally representa- tive the operation of a Central Fund might be the means of equalisation. 58. At the outset, for the purpose of securing essential statistics and in order to determine the standards of health in different parts of the country, it may be necessary to consider each group as an area Society, the Society operating financially very similarly to an Approved Society under the present system ; but as time and experience allowed, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the actuarial basis as we know it, and the valuations as they are now conducted, could be very materially modified. We should, then, for the purpose of establishing this new system, proceed along existing actuarial lines. THE FINANCES OF THE PRESENT SCHEME. 59. We are unable to agree that we should make no recom- mendation which takes us outside the financial limits of the present scheme. We submit that there is financial loss due to the overlapping of the various services at present in operation and that the money available will be increased when these services are unified and controlled under the TLocal Authority. 60. We are also clear that a Commission dealing with National Health Insurance must take into account national loss resulting from neglect to provide sufficiently for the health of all those who are or will be employable. 61. The whole question of national health is bound up with that of efficiency and output, and it is impossible to rank as a “ burden ”’ on industry or on the community an outlay which safeguards industrial well-being and (to put it no higher) con- duces to the efficiency of the machine. These charges produce a definite return. °° There is five per cent. in good conditions,’ said a great employer of labour. 62. We agree with our colleagues that it is desirable ‘that a balance between the expenditure on these schemes 34709 I, ©