MINORITY REPORT,
310
ployment Act and so a force is created directly opposed to the
public interest and to public health. The evidence of the British
Medical Association rather indicates that this undesirable effect
of the disparity has been noticed by the officials of Employment
Exchanges and goes on to state that medical certificates to the
effect that a claimant is fit for work are demanded ‘° whenever
the clerk in charge of the Exchange thinks they could not work
if they were offered it >> (Q. 14,788-14,793).
95. The effect upon health of inadequate maintenance allow-
ance during sickness and unemployment is vividly illustrated in
the Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of ¢the Ministry
of Health for the year 1924, paras. 94 and 95. In his Annual
Report for 1928, Dr. Dickinson Leigh, the Tuberculosis Officer
for Sunderland, in drawing attention to the check in the decline
of tuberculosis, points out that, ** The unparalleled poverty and
distress due to want of employment is the chief explanation.
The want of essential foodstuffs, especially of fats, such as
butter and milk, and the lack of suitable clothing and footwear,
has markedly lowered the resisting power of the population.’’
96. In the Report of the Tuberculosis Officer for Newcastle-
on-Tyne the increased mortality among women and children
from tuberculosis was ascribed to undernourishment and general
distress through unemployment; and Dr. James Watt, in the
Annual Report of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, suggests the
same evil effect of an inadequate standard of maintenance. The
obvious effect of insufficient provision for the wage-earner
against contingencies of life such as sickness and unemployment,
would be a fitting subject to consider in relation to Chapter VI
of the Majority Report on the Financial Burden of Existing
Social Services. We think, however, it will be agreed that to
increase the rates of sickness benefit to the same level as the
existing rates of unemployment benefit would be as much in the
interest of the prevention of future sickness as in the interest
of the sick person at the time of incapacity. We therefore recon -
mend that the normal rates of sickness benefit under the Health
Insurance Act should be raised to 18s per week for men and
15s. per week for women.
DrsABLEMENT BENEFIT.
97. We are not satisfied that Societies generally have
administered this benefit as a continuation of sickness benefit
at a reduced rate. On the contrary, we feel as has been sug-
gested in evidence by Sir Walter Kinnear (Q. 313), that the test
of incapacity has been too rigid. The effect of a rigid or drastic
administration of this benefit, which in the main applies to cases
of chronic incapacitation, is to throw insured persons out of
insurance who from recurring incapacity and ignorance of their
legal position allow their ‘‘ free year *’ to lapse without enforcing
their claim.
SF
