A new and important provision of the Act of 1920 was the right given to industries to contract out of the State scheme and institute special schemes of compulsory insurance for their own workers. Before a special scheme can be approved it has to be submitted by a Joint Industrial Council or an association fully representative of the majority of employers and employed in the industry. The Minister has to be satisfied that insurance against unemployment in the industry can be more satisfactorily provided by a special scheme than under the general scheme of the Act. The special scheme must cover all the employed persons in the industry, and the benefits must be not less favourable on the whole than the benefits provided by the Act. The industries which might naturally be disposed to contract out of the general scheme are those in which unemployment is less than the average rate of unemployment in all the industries included in the general scheme. In other words, only those industries might be expected to contract out which could, by reason of their lower rate of unemployment, provide greater benefits for the same rate of contribution as under the general scheme, or the same or a slightly better rate of benefit for a lower contribution. As against this, the rate of State contribution payable to a special scheme is reduced to a sum not exceeding three-tenths of the contribution which would otherwise be paid by the State in respect of contributions from the industry if the employers and employed persons in the industry remained in the general scheme. Only one special scheme has, so far, been approved, viz. that for the Insurance business, which covers about 80,000 persons. In view of the temporary emergency provisions made in the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1921, and the Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Act, 1921, to meet the abnormal amount of unemployment, it became necessary to suspend the right of additional industries to contract out until the Unemployment Fund again attains a position of solvency. A feature of the State scheme which is open to criticism is the right of insured persons to receive a refund in respect of their contributions. This provision follows generally the lines of Section 95 of the Act of 1911. The refund made is the excess of the employed person’s share of the contributions paid in respect of him, less any benefit he has received. Refunds are not payable unless the employed person has reached the age of 60 and has paid in the aggregate a specified number of contributions. Emergency Provisions