It is a better thing to make a man healthy than to pay him so much a week when he is ill." Mr.Lloyd George points out that the German employers have found that the governmental insurance against accidents has proved a good investment:-- "When Bismarck was strengthening the foundation of the new German Empire, one of the very first tasks he undertook was the organization of a scheme which insured the German workmen and their families against the worst evils arising from these common accidents of life.

And a superb scheme it was.

It has saved an incalculable amount of human misery to hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of people.
"Wherever I went in Germany, north or south, and whomever I met, whether it was an _employer_ or a workman, a _Conservative_ or a Liberal, a Socialist or a Trade-union Leader--men of all ranks, sections and creeds, with one accord joined in lauding the benefits which have been conferred upon Germany by this beneficent policy.
Several wanted extensions, but there was not one who wanted to go back.

The employers admitted that at first they did not quite like the new burdens it cast upon them, _but they now fully realized the advantages which even they derived from the expenditure_, for it had raised the standard of the workman throughout Germany." (My italics.)[63] It is not only worry and anxiety that were removed, but definite and irregular sums that workers or their employers had formerly set aside for insurance against accident, sickness, and old age, were now calculated and regulated on a business basis more profitable to both parties to the labor contract.

It is true that in Germany the employers only pay part of the cost, the rest being borne almost entirely by employees, while in Great Britain--as far as the old age pensions go--the government pays all, and is likely to pay a considerable part, perhaps a third, in the other insurance schemes.