MAJORITY REPORT. CHAPTER II. THE SCHEME OF NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE, HISTORY OF THE SCHEME. 7. The Scheme of National Health Insurance in this country had its origin in the National Insurance Act of 1911, which was described in its Preamble as ‘‘ an Act to provide for insurance against loss of health and the prevention and cure of sickness and for purposes incidental thereto.” The Scheme came into operation on the 15th July, 1912, and had therefore been in operation for a period of 12 years at the time when we were appointed to make the first general and comprehensive investigation into its working. 8. During these 12 years the Scheme of Health Insurance has not been without its history—a history which is reflected in a fairly continuous series of amending Acts of varying degrees of importance stretching from 1913 to the Consolidating Act of 1924. These various legislative alterations may, broadly, be ascribed to two main causes. In the first place, the original Act, viewed merely as a piece of legislation, was planned on a generous scale, and was drafted on the assumption that special provision should be made for any class of the population which appeared to call for special treatment. For example, aliens and those workers whose conditions of employment guaranteed them pay- ment of wages during a certain period of incapacity, were the subject of special legislative provision. Moreover, other sections of the Act aimed at dispensing justice as between indi- viduals in matters where abstract justice could only be achieved by machinery which in the circumstances could not fail to be burdensome in administration. As examples of such it may be permissible to cite the original provision made for the calculation and the imposition of penalties for arrears, the provision with regard to late entrants to insurance, and the arrangements for transfer between compulsory and voluntary insurance. In the light of subsequent events the original Act might be criticised for its implicit underlying assumption that the indivi- duals composing the population are * classifiable ’’ in a sense in which, in fact, they are not. Consequently, no doubt, certain sections of the Act, irreproachable in themselves and based on the assumption that the population as a whole was stabilised, were found to be out of touch with the realities of the situation. In short, the original Act was in many respects complex with a complexity which in practice yielded no adequate com- pensating advantage, and the realisation of this fact led to one series of amendments, those aiming at simplification of enactment and of administration.