NATIONAL INSURANCE : WIDOWS' AND OR PHANS' PENSIONS. The first quarter of the loth century was remarkable for the rapid development of schemes of social insurance. The article that follows deals with developments in Europe. These do not exist in the United States except in the form of Mothers' pensions, an account of which will be found in the article PENSIONS : The United States. While at first the schemes were directed to the protection of the workman himself, the necessity of making provision for the family when death removes the breadwinner has increasingly claimed attention. In Great Britain the problem of the widow and fatherless children re ceived special consideration in the Report of the Royal Commis sion on the Poor Laws, published in 1909. The subject was de bated in the House of Commons for the first time in 1919, and afterwards in 1923, 1924 and 1925. There was general agreement as to the desirability of establishing a scheme of pensions for widows, but the debates showed divergence of opinion as to the method of financing the scheme. Within a month after the last debate Mr. Winston Churchill in introducing the Budget announced that the Government had decided to bring in a Bill establishing widows' and orphans' pensions and old age pen sions at the age of 65. The Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Bill, the second reading of which was moved by the Minister of Health, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, on May 18, 1925, proclaimed that the Government had adopted the contributory principle. It became law, and the provisions relating to widows and orphans came into operation on Jan. 4, 1926.
comparatively small classes who are not insured under the health insurance scheme are compulsorily insured for widows' and or phans' pensions. These classes consist of men who hold certificates exempting them from liability to be insured under the National Health Insurance Act and of persons employed in certain types of "excepted employment." Voluntary insurance under the Na tional Health Insurance Act is limited to persons who, having previously been compulsorily insured for a minimum period, elect within a specified time to continue as voluntary contributors. On the same principle the right to continue as voluntary con tributors is given on certain conditions to persons who were previously insured compulsorily for widows' and orphans' pensions only, i.e., as exempt men or as persons in excepted employment.
The Pensions Act made a further addition to the classes of persons eligible for voluntary insurance. As a married woman is debarred from being a voluntary contributor under the Health Insurance Act, the Pensions Act provides that an uninsured man may become a voluntary contributor within a prescribed time after his marriage to an insured woman if certain conditions at taching to her previous insurance are satisfied, so that her in surance before marriage gives inter alia the opportunity of ac quiring a title to a widow's pension.