DOMESTIC SERVICE AND NATIONAL INSURANCE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—May we ask the hospitality of your columns in order to draw attention to the work of the "Employers' and Servants' Inquiry Association " ? The aim of this Association is to secure legal uniformity in the operation of the National Health Insurance Act as it affects the monthly contract of -domestic service. Questions of mutual convenience, of per- sonal regard, and of moral obligations enter largely into the
arrangements made between employers and servants, but these considerations are outside the object we have in view. The point we desire to emphasize is that under the National Health Insur- ance Act employers and servants are bound by a rigidly defined legal system as far as the illnesses of servants are concerned, and it has now become necessary to find out where legal obliga- tions end before it is possible to know where moral obligations begin. Some settlement of this kind seems no less needed in the interests of servants than in those of their employers. Many questions arise out of these points, but for the purpose of this Association the issue is narrowed down to the two which follow here : (1) Is there any legal obligation, under the monthly contract system, to pay wages to a servant during the weeks when sick pay - is being received ? (2) Is an employer under the legal obligation of providing board and lodging or their equivalent in money to a servant while in receipt of sick pay? Will those employers and domestic servants who are in favour of taking some united action of this kind kindly communicate with Miss Allarton, Secretary, 5 Waterloo Street, Birmingham, enclosing stamped addressed envelope for reply P—We are, Sir, &c.,
MARY F. A. LODGE, President. MAUD SIMON, Chairman.
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