That is a very considerable group of industries.  They comprise, probably at the present time, 21/4 millions of adult males.  Two and a quarter millions of adult males are, roughly speaking, one-third of the population of these three kingdoms engaged in purely industrial work; that is to say, excluding commercial, professional, agricultural, and domestic occupations.  Of the remaining two-thirds of the industrial population, nearly one-half are employed in the textile trades, in mining, on the railways, in the merchant marine, and in other trades, which either do not present the same features of unemployment which we see in these precarious trades, or which, by the adoption of short time or other arrangements, avoid the total discharge of a proportion of workmen from time to time.  So that this group of trades to which we propose to apply the system of unemployment insurance, roughly speaking, covers very nearly half of the whole field of unemployment; and that half is, on the whole, perhaps the worse half.

The financial and actuarial basis of the scheme has been very carefully studied by the light of all available information.  The report of the actuarial authorities whom I have consulted leaves me in no doubt that, even after all allowance has been made for the fact that unemployment may be more rife in the less organised and less highly skilled trades than in the trade unions who pay unemployment benefits—­which is by no means certain—­there is no doubt whatever that a financially sound scheme can be evolved which, in return for moderate contributions, will yield adequate benefits.  I do not at this stage propose to offer any figures of contributions or benefits to the House.  I confine myself to stating that we propose to aim at a scale of benefits which would be somewhat lower both in amount and in duration of payments, than that which the best-organised trade unions provide for their own members, but which, at the same time, should afford a substantial weekly payment extending over by far the greater part of the average period of unemployment of all unemployed persons in these trades.

In order to enable such a scale of benefits to be paid, we should have to raise a total sum of something between 5d. and 6d. per week per head, and this sum will be met by contributions, not necessarily equal, from the State, the workman, and the employer.  For such sacrifices, which are certainly not extortionate, and which, fairly adjusted, will not hamper industry nor burden labour, nor cause an undue strain on public finance, we believe it possible to relieve a vast portion of our industrial population from a haunting and constant peril which gnaws the very heart of their prosperity and contentment.

The House will see the connection of this to the Labour Exchanges.  The machinery of the insurance scheme has been closely studied, and, as at present advised, we should propose to follow the example of Germany in respect of Insurance Cards or Books, to which stamps will be affixed week by week.  When a worker in an insured trade loses his employment, all he will have to do is to take his card to the Labour Exchange, which, working in conjunction with the Insurance Office, will find him a job or pay him his benefit.