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MAJORITY REPORT.

a system might have some advantage over the present system,
but we fail to see how it could be expected to solve the particular
problem with which we are here dealing. Under the present
system an insured person is free to choose the Society to which
he shall belong, and if he selects a Society which proves to be
relatively unsuccessful and, as a consequence, unable to provide
substantial additional benefits, he is, to some extent, responsible
for the unfortunate position in which he finds himself. Iz,
however, Societies were organised on a territorial basis and every
insured person were compelled to belong to a particular Society
determined solely by his place of residence, it would be far less
easy to justify the position arising as a result of the more
favourable experience of some Societies than of others. Nor can
there be any question that such a position would arise, as the
difference of experience between, say, the County Society for
Durham and the County Society for Dorsetshire would be substantially
 the same as that between a society for miners and
one for rural workers.

252. Our conclusion that a system of Territorial Societies would
not avoid the disadvantage of widely different financial results on
valuation receives illustration in the table printed as Part X of
Appendix A to the Report of the Government Actuary on the first
Valuation (Cmd. 1662). In that table is shown a summary
of the results of local societies and branches in England, grouped
under the counties in which their offices are situated. (The large
centralised societies are not included, but the table covers nearly
four million insured persons.) The average net surplus per
member is 24s. From this average there are variations ag high
as 39s. 1d. in Sussex, and as low as 5s. 1d. in Northumberland and
Durham. The experience of all the separate counties shows that
no uniformity of results is to be expected from a system of Territorial
 Societies.

JUSTIFICATION FOR VARIATIONS IN BENEFITS.

253. After the most careful consideration of the subject we have
come to the conclusion that with a flat rate of contribution from
all insured persons, whatever their liability to sickness, the provision
 of varying benefits can be justified. We are impressed by the
fact that the inequality of experience between different Societies
is accompanied by a considerable inequality in wages. For
example, agricultural workers who receive lower wages than the
average artisans show better results under National Health Insurance.
 It was mainly on the ground that agricultural workers are
on the whole less liable to sickness than persons engaged in other
occupations that a demand was made on their behalf in 1911 for a
lower rate of contribution and it was chiefly on the ground of the
administrative difficulties of differentiation in the rate of contribution
 that this demand was resisted. At the same time it was