sses from unemployment has been given in discussing that
subject in the preceding chapter.

Sec. 3. #The new era of social insurance.# Some not insignificant
attempts to deal with these problems were made throughout the
nineteenth century, but the new era of social insurance may be said to
date from the message of the Emperor William to the German Reichstag
in 1881, in which he said:

We consider it our imperial duty to impress upon the Reichstag the
necessity of furthering the welfare of the working people.... In order
to realize these views, a bill for the insurance of workmen against
industrial accidents will first of all be laid before you; after which a
supplementary measure will be submitted, providing for a general
organization of industrial sick-relief insurance. Likewise, those who are
disabled in consequence _of_ old age, or invalidity, possess a
well-founded claim to more relief on the part of the state than they have
hitherto enjoyed.

The program here outlined was carried out by the enactment between
1883 and 1889 of a series of laws, which taken together constituted
a pretty effective system of social insurance for the mass of
wage-workers in the German Empire. Later amendments have extended
and improved the various features of the plan, which has served as a
stimulative example to other countries. America has been the tardiest
among all the industrial nations to undertake this kind of social
reform.

Sec. 4. #Features of social insurance.# The plans of social insurance,
in force in various countries, present a great variety of features
combined in many ways. The main characteristics in which they may
differ relate to (1) the element of compulsion, (2) contributions by
the insured, (3) the nature of the insurance organization.

Insurance may be _voluntary_ or _compulsory_. It is voluntary when
the state simply encourages the formation of insurance agencies, and
perhaps contributes something to them, leaving it to the individuals
to insure themselves as they choose, in mutual societies, or in
privately managed companies. In the case of accident insurance,
however, there is often a semi-compulsion by which the employer is
requires to pay indemnity to his workers, according to fixed scales of
compensation, but is left free to insure himself against this risk
or not as he pleases, in which case it is still called voluntary
insurance. Compulsory insurance is that which the state requires