In connexion with the protest meeting we may note a
letter by Mr. Masterman, the Chairman of the National Health Insurance Joint Committee, which was published in Friday's papers. The object of the letter is to explain hew the Act affects domestic servants and their employers. Its tone is helpful and unprovocative, and no attempt is made to manufacture party capital out of the Act. In describing the alternatives before domestic servants, Mr. Masterman very properly states that mistresses who advisee servant to commute the disablement benefit run a very grave risk of causing injury to the servant if the latter does suffer a premature breakdown, and if in such case the mistress is not prepared to undertake the burden of providing a permanent pension. We agree, and for that reason we would very strongly advise all domestic servants to choose the disablement benefit. We are also glad to note that Mr. Masterman uses the following words : "The Act gives the employer the right to deduct threepence from wages, and in normal cases that should be done." We may add that we cannot help thinking that it would have been in better taste in what is, after all, an official document if Mr. Masterman bad refrained from the ironic, touch in the last sentence of his letter.
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