MAJORITY REPORT. 
the stamps to the cards of their workpeople—the insured persons 
—from whose wages an appropriate deduction representing the 
smployed person’s contribution may then be made; and each 
insured person surrenders his card so stamped at the end of the 
half-year to his Approved Society, or to the Central Department 
if he is a deposit contributor. The cards which have thus been 
surrendered to the Societies are transmitted in bulk to the Central 
Departments and Societies are credited with the value of the 
stamps on the cards, after certain deductions, to be described: 
later, have been made. The Central Departments thus act as 
bankers holding the credits of Societies. 
157. The State grants are made in the form of a fixed propor- 
tion (at present two-ninths) of the expenditure on benefits and 
their administration. 
ALLOCATION OF THE WEEKLY CONTRIBUTION. 
158. The weekly contribution, as reduced by the Widows’, 
Orphans’ and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act, 1925, is 9d. 
for men and 83d. for women. The following is the allocation of 
these contributions :— 
Benefit Fund and cost of administration .. 
Reserve values (interest and redemption; 
Contingencies Fund 
159. The sums credited directly to the Societies represent the 
aggregate amount of their contribution claims at the rate of 7§d. 
« week in the case of men and Tid. a week in the case of women. 
The Societies are also credited with the contributions applicable 
to their Contingencies Funds (at the rates, respectively, of ?d. 
and 2d.) subject to deductions not exceeding one-eighth for the 
support of the Central Fund. In the circumstances explained 
below this deduction is at present in abeyance and the full 
amount of the contributions apportioned to the Contingencies: 
Funds is carried to the credit of the Societies. 
160. The balance of the contributions represented by the 
Societies’ returns, that is to say, the aggregate of the amounts 
produced by 1d. per contribution in the case of men and Jd. in 
the case of women, goes to form the fund for the redemption of 
reserve values and the payment of interest on outstanding reserve 
values. The need for these reserve values, which are book 
credits, and—what is, of course, more to the purpose—for their 
conversion into actual moneys which in due course will be avail- 
able for the payment of benefits, arises in the following circum- 
stances. The contributions were originally fixed at rates