To come back to sickness. A man who is sick may be getting 10s. a week sick pay, and in some cases as much as 18s.; but even so it is always less money than when he is at work. Employers and Friendly Societies argue that it is quite wrong for the workman to get as much money when he is sick as when he is in health, because, they say, unless a man loses by not being at work he is likely to malinger. This argument is one of those stupid, ridiculous theories of life and conduct which in practice work out very badly and very cruelly indeed. For the man who is sick and at home is a great burden on his wife, and every extra penny that is spent on him means less food, less of the necessities of life, for the rest of the family. It means also that a decent man drags himself back to work long before he has any business to do so, and so risks early permanent disablement or the bringing on of some chronic illness from which he never properly recovers. As a mere matter of expediency men who are sick ought to get not only their normal wages, but something extra, so that they could secure the necessary means of recovery. In periods of unemployment a workman may also receive out-of-work pay under the National Insurance Act at the rate of 7s. to 10s. per week. This, again, is fixed low, because the authorities are afraid that if, while unemployed, men are able to live decently and properly with their wives and children, they will not be anxious to go to work again. A more short-sighted policy it is impossible to find. The few miserable shillings are only sufficient to starve on, and in large numbers of cases mean demoralisation, because want of food and want of nourishment always make men despondent and despairing, and often rob them of character and morale. How differently we treat soldiers! These we maintain on full pay in peace time in order to keep them fit for the day when they may be needed. The workman on whom we all depend is left to starve, or given just enough to exist upon, and then we wonder that he loses heart and dignity and sometimes even honesty, and often becomes quite unemployable.