ABSTRACT
The proposed death grants should suffice both to meet direct funeral expenses and to leave a margin over to cover layout on flowers, mourning, wages lost on the day of the funeral, and other incidental costs incurred by the person who pays the funeral bill. If it would give the Government a more direct inducement to reduce funeral costs, it would be better to make the death grants a direct charge on the Exchequer. In the long run it will be found that the Coalition's line of least resistance is also the line of greatest confusion and that nationalisation is an easier, simpler and juster reform than the piecemeal break-up of industrial assurance proposed in the White Paper. If nationalisation is rejected, however, it will be a scandal if the Government refrain from enforcing the most drastic legal restrictions and reform of practices upon the industrial assurance business.
