Judged by the amount of space devoted to the subject in the Journal of the Institute, Unemployment Insurance has received but little attention from actuaries in the past Public interest in the problem of relieving distress due to unemployment became pronounced in the early years of the present century and led to the appointment in 1904 of a Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and, eventually, to the passing in 1911 of the first Unemployment Insurance Act. These important events found a somewhat pallid reflection in our proceedings in the form of reprints of extracts from Sir H. Llewellyn Smith's address on Insurance against Unemployment to the British Association in 1910 (J.I.A., vol. xliv, p. 511) and of Mr. Ackland's report on Part II of the National Insurance Bill (J.I.A., vol. xlv, p. 456). At a later date, when the scope of the national scheme was very greatly widened, the Government Actuary's report on the relevant measure—the Unemployment Insurance Bill 1919—was reprinted in the Journal (J.I.A., vol. lii, page 72).
REPORT OF THE Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress