asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if any later statistics of the sickness experience of the Manchester Unity are now available; and whether such information has been submitted to the actuaries who advised upon the National Insurance Bill, and, if so, has any supplementary Report been issued?

No later statistics are available in a form of which the actuaries could make use.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether under the National Insurance Bill, Holloway societies, which are actuarily solvent and number over 10,000 members, and are therefore qualified to become approved societies, will in. the future be allowed, under a re-arranged scheme, to share out their surplus funds among their members, or whether all societies will in the future have to form superannuation funds?

The surplus funds realised from the contributions under the National Health Insurance will of course have to be applied to the additional benefit prescribed by the Bill, but the Holloway societies will be free to deal with all funds contributed outside the National Scheme on precisely the same basis as at present.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the fact that during the ten years ending 1908 the death-rate from pulmonary tuberculosis was 13.3 per 10,000 of the population of the United Kingdom, and 17.9 per 10,000 of the population of that part of the German Empire for which Returns have been furnished to the Registrar-General for England and Wales; and whether he can give the House information as to the cause of the higher death-rate from this disease existing in Germany despite State sick insurance there for many years?

It is undoubtedly the case that the rate of mortality from pulmonary tuberculosis is higher in Germany than in the United Kingdom. There has been a large reduction in the death rate from this cause in Germany since the Sickness and Invalidity Insurance laws have been in full operation, and German authorities attribute the reduction in part to the beneficial influence of these laws upon the health of the nation, and particularly to the measures adopted— including an extensive system of sanatoria —for the treatment of consumption in the early stages of the disease. The same authorities agree that unsatisfactory conditions of life, and especially of housing, contribute largely to the existing high rate of mortality from consumption.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the average expectation of sickness referred to in Clause 46 (2) of the National Insurance Bill means the average expectation of sickness among the whole body of insured persons for the administration of whose sickness and disablement benefits the society or committee is responsible, or among such members of that body as are employed in a particular trade or calling?

The average expectations of sickness in the Clause referred to means the average expectation taking into account all the normal circumstances of the cases by contrast with the exceptional circumstances of which an excess over the average is to be regarded as primâ facie evidence.