actual age of re-employment, and not at the standard age of 17 or under.

Divorce, or separation from or desertion by her husband continued for two years, is treated as equivalent to death for the purpose of these provisions.

Wages Paid during Sickness.-If the Insurance Commissioners are satisfied that a custom or practice prevails in any class of employment according to which the persons employed receive full remuneration during periods of disease or disablement or part thereof, then they are to make Special Orders recognising this, and adapting the provisions of the Act to such custom or practice on the following lines laid down in Section 47.

Any employer who wishes to have the benefit of the modified scheme must give the Insurance Commissioners a prescribed notice, and then

(a) The employer is to be liable to pay full remuneration to every person within the custom or practice during any period or periods not exceeding six weeks in the aggregate in any one year during which such person may be suffering from any disease or disablement commencing while such person is in his employment, notwithstanding that such person may have left his employment before the expiration of that time (with a more onerous liability where any such person is engaged for a term of not less than six months certain).

(b) Sickness benefit is not to be payable in respect of any period during which full remuneration is payable by the employer, but for the purpose of calculating the rate and duration thereof, it is to be deemed to have been paid for six weeks before the date as from which it becomes actually payable. In other words, the employer's remuneration takes the place of the first six weeks' sick benefit.

(c) The employed rate is to be reduced by twopence, or, where the employed contributor is a woman, by three halfpence.

(d) Of this reduced contribution the employer is to have the benefit of one penny in the case of a man and one halfpenny in the case of a woman, and the employed contributor is to have a reduction of a penny.

(e) If a person who has been subject to this modification of the scheme becomes temporarily unemployed, his arrears are calculated at the reduced rate, but if he falls ill he is still excluded from sickness benefit for six weeks, although his past employer may be under no liability to him for wages.

(f) None of these provisions are to apply as respects any person employed at a rate of remuneration which is less than ten shillings a week.

Any question as to whether an employer is entitled to avail himself of these provisions as respects any persons employed by him shall be determined by the Insurance Committee, subject to appeal to the Insurance Commissioners.

An employer may, by giving three months' previous notice to the Insurance Committee, withdraw from these provisions as from the commencement of the next calendar year.

The Insurance Commissioners made several Special Orders under this section, and most of these are now represented by the National Health Insurance (Special Customs) Consolidated Order, 1914, which is set out in Appendix XII. (e). Other Orders dealing with Crown employment and certain special employers are not material for the purposes of this book.

Protection against Distress and Execution.-Under Section 68, where the medical practitioner attending on any insured person in receipt of sickness benefit certifies that the levying of any distress or execution upon any goods or chattels belonging to an insured person, and being in premises occupied by him, or the taking of any proceedings in ejectment or for the recovery of rent, or to enforce any judgment in ejectment against such person, would endanger his life, and such certificate has been sent to the Insurance Committee and has been recorded as provided in the Act, it shall not be lawful during any period which can lawfully be named in the certificate for any person to levy any such distress or execution or to take any such proceedings or to enforce any such judgment against the insured person.

An appeal as to the accuracy of the certificate lies to the Registrar of the County Court.

A certificate continues in force for one week or such less period as may be named in it, but the certificate may be renewed for any period not exceeding one week up to but not beyond the expiration of three months from the date of the grant of the original certificate. Renewals must be sent to the Insurance Committee and recorded.

The landlord or the judgment creditor can demand proper security for payment of the rent, to become due after the expiration of one month from the date of the grant of the original certificate, or the amount of the judgment debt, and if proper security is not given, the protection lapses at the end of one month. Any dispute as to the sufficiency of the security is to be determined by the Registrar of the County Court.

These certificates are to be forthwith sent to the Insurance Committee and recorded by them in a special register without fee, and such register is at all reasonable times to be open to inspection.

CHAPTER XIX

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

PART II. of the National Insurance Act, 1911, deals with the payment of benefit to workmen during periods of unemployment. It has been amended by the National Insurance (Part II., Amendment) Act, 1914. The scheme of the Act is to provide for the compulsory insurance of workers in certain scheduled trades, and to encourage the voluntary provision of unemployment benefit by Trade Unions or other Associations of workmen. Where the insurance is compulsory, the burden of it is shared between the master, the workman, and the State, and possibly the Workmen's Association. Where an Association provides the benefit voluntarily, the State on certain conditions makes a subsidy, but the masters are not in any way parties to the arrangement. The compulsory scheme is that with which this book is primarily concerned, but the voluntary scheme will be explained in due course.

Definition of Workman.-Under Section 107 workman means any person of the age of 16 or upwards employed wholly or mainly by way of manual labour, who has entered into or works under a contract of service with an employer, whether the contract is expressed or implied, is oral or in writing, but does not include an indentured apprentice.

This is practically the same as the definition of a workman for the purposes of the Truck Acts and the Employers and Workmen Act, 1875.

Indentured apprentices are excluded because, while their indentures are in force, they cannot be out of work.

It should be noted that females as well as males are included in the definition, but as a matter of fact in only two of the scheduled trades is it usual to employ women.

Contributions and benefits are the same for both men and women, and women are not separately mentioned in this part of the Act.

The Scheduled Trades.-The following are the trades to which compulsory insurance now applies:

(1) Building, i.e. the construction, alteration, repair, decoration, or demolition of buildings, including the manufacture of any fittings of wood of a kind commonly made in builders' workshops or yards.

(2) Construction of works, i.e. the construction, reconstruction, or alteration of railroads, docks, harbours, canals, embankments, bridges, piers, or other works of construction.

(3) Shipbuilding, i.e. the construction, alteration, repair, or decoration of ships, boats, or other craft by persons not being usually members of a ship's crew, including the manufacture of any fittings of wood of a kind commonly made in a shipbuilding yard.

(4) Mechanical engineering, including the manufacture of ordnance and firearms.

(5) Iron-founding.

(6) Construction of vehicles, i.e. the construction, repair, or decoration of vehicles.

(7) Saw-milling (including machine woodwork) carried on in connexion with any other insured trade or of a kind commonly so carried on.

On May 6, 1914, the Board of Trade gave notice that they proposed to make two Special Orders, extending these provisions (a) to workmen in the trade of saw-milling (including machine woodwork), whether carried on in connexion with any other insured trade or not, and (b) to workmen in the trade of repairing works of construction other than roads and the permanent way of railways. On June 5, 1914, the Board of Trade gave notice that a public inquiry would be held as to the proposed Orders. No further steps have yet been taken.

It will be seen that the schedule comprises a list of trades,