Whereas, moreover :

(1) Many countries have established, or propose to establish, compulsory insurance systems whereby workers or their families are entitled to a pension in case of invalidity, old age or premature decease;

(2) Whereas the acquisition of a right to such pensions is made subject by national laws to the completion of a qualifying period which is frequently of considerable length as well as to the payment of substantial contributions out of the wages of the insured persons during the whole of their working lives;

(3) Whereas the operation of more than one qualifying period frequently causes workers who have to look for employment in another country to lose the right to a pension which had already been partly acquired, so that they are either unable to obtain a pension at all, or such pension as they may obtain is inadequate, and they are thus deprived, contrary to all equity, of the benefit of the contributions which they have already paid and of contributions paid to insurance institutions on their account by their employers;

(4) Whereas in the absence of internationally accepted rules bi-lateral treaties are rarely entered into between States, and when such treaties are concluded after prolonged negotiations they do not secure adequate protection of the workers, because, for example, each State is guided too strictly by its own laws and regulations and lays down conditions too stringent to enable the right to a pension to be equitably maintained;

(5) Whereas the consequence of the foregoing in the case of a great many workers, particularly miners and seamen, is that their long-continued effort to save is brought to nought and that they are left resourceless after a long life of toil;

The Conference,

Considering that the problem of the maintenance of rights to a pension in spite of its admitted complexity is of an essentially international character and calls urgently for treatment by the International Labour Organisation, Invites the International Labour Office to examine the situation created by national laws on old age, invalidity and widows' and orphans' insurance in regard to workers proceeding from one country to another, and to endeavour to find solutions enabling the right of such workers to a pension to be maintained; and

Requests the Governing Body of the International Labour Office to place on the agenda of an early Session of the International Labour Conference, either before or at the same time as the general question of old age, invalidity and widows' and orphans' insurance, the question of the maintenance of the right to pension of workers proceeding from one country to another.

APPENDIX X.

RESOLUTION CONCERNING THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CONTRACTS OF
EMPLOYMENT AS ADOPTED BY THE CONFERENCE.

The International Labour Conference requests the Governing Body to consider the possibility of placing the question of the general principles of contracts of employment on the agenda of an early Session of the Conference.

APPENDIX XI.

RESOLUTION CONCERNING THE SOLUTION OF COLLECTIVE LABOUR DISPUTES AS ADOPTED BY THE CONFERENCE.

The International Labour Conference requests the Governing Body to consider the possibility of placing the question of the solution of collective labour disputes on the agenda of an early Session of the Conference.

APPENDIX XII.

RESOLUTION CONCERNING THE APPLICATION OF THE DOUBLE DISCUSSION PROCEDURE AS ADOPTED BY THE CONFERENCE.

The Conference, in view of the difficulties which have been experienced during the present Session as regards the adoption of the questionnaires in accordance with paragraph 5, Article 6, of the Standing Orders, invites the Governing Body, while maintaining the principle, to examine further the application of the double discussion procedure, and to make proposals for its improvement to the next Session of the Conference.

APPENDIX XIII.

RESOLUTION CONCERNING COMPULSORY SICKNESS INSURANCE IN SPARSELYPOPULATED COUNTRIES AS ADOPTED BY THE CONFERENCE.

Whereas in certain regions of several countries, both European and extra-European, the organisation of the medical benefit of compulsory sickness insurance meets with great obstacles arising out of the sparseness of the population, the long distances and the scarcity or difficulty of the means of communication;

Whereas these obstacles also arise in connection with the organisation and working of the general health services and poor relief system, and for this reason experiments have been made, and methods yielding useful results have been employed in order to overcome them, among those methods being the following:

(a) The unification of all health services in such a way as to provide the population with the benefit and the doctor with adequate remuneration;

(b) The diffusion of general instruction on health matters, the authorisation of nurses, practitioners, midwives and other persons engaged in professions connected with health, to perform, in exceptional cases, certain functions usually reserved to doctors;

(c) The establishment of dispensaries in the centre of certain areas and the organisation of periodical tours to be made by doctors according to definite itineraries, of which the population has been notified beforehand;

(d) The granting of subsidies by the State to the sickness funds or local authorities which organise methods of communication, place means of transport at the disposal of doctors or encourage instruction in health matters, &c.;

(e) The imposition upon insured persons and local authorities of part of the additional cost of the benefit when the latter has to be administered outside a prescribed limit;

Whereas the object of the medical benefit of compulsory sickness insurance is to fulfil social and humanitarian purposes, and ought to be achieved by overcoming, if possible, the obstacles which may arise out of the sparseness of the population or the nature of the geographical conditions of certain countries;

And whereas, in order to facilitate the task of Governments and insurance institutions, it would be of the greatest utility to learn what is being done and what can be done to further this object;

The Conference,

Requests the International Labour Office to undertake an enquiry and to publish as complete a report as possible upon the most effective methods of overcoming the obstacles which hinder the organisation of a system of compulsory sickness insurance in countries which are sparsely populated or where geographical conditions render communication difficult.

914-8) Wt. 19115-3044 750 12/27 H. St. G. 3

League of Nations

Forty-Third Session of the
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REPORT BY THE RIGHT HON. SIR AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, K.G., M.P. British Representative

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