The amounts of benefits vary considerably and may depend upon the length of membership, and various regulations exist for limiting the length of time during which unemployment benefits may be paid. This period is usually limited to about six or eight weeks, after which some organizations grant half the benefits for another period of the same length. In the following table are shown the principal statistics of contributions and benefits of the unemployment insurance organizations in Milan:

67725°-VOL 2—11-27

INSURANCE ORGANIZATIONS IN MILAN, BY OCCUPATIONS, 1902.
Pubblicazioni della Società Umanitaria.]

This total is not the correct sum of the items; the figures are given as shown in the original report.

The two labor organizations which have granted unemployment insurance for the longest time are the unions of compositors and printers. In the following table are given the main results of their operations; for the compositors, for the period 1877 to 1901, and for the printers, for 1880 to 1902:

RESULTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE IN UNIONS OF COMPOSITORS AND OF PRINTERS IN MILAN FOR A SERIES OF YEARS. [Source: Contro la Disoccupazione. Pubblicazioni della Società Umanitaria.]

In a small way the mutual benefit societies (described in the chapter on sickness insurance) have made some effort to meet the problem of unemployment relief for over 25 years. According to the statistical reports of these mutual benefit societies, in 1885 there were 184 societies which included unemployment relief among their various activities, in 1895 there were 234, and in 1904, 417, or 6.2 per cent of all. No data exist as to the amount of unemployment relief thus granted, except for 1885, when it amounted to 32,787 lire ($6,328).

The peculiar conditions of the unemployment insurance problem require special organizations for dealing with them, and within the last decade various special unemployment insurance societies have been founded in Italy in an experimental way. Though the extent of the activity of these societies is small, they are nevertheless of importance because the entire subject of unemployment insurance is as yet in an experimental stage, and the best method of treating this condition still remains to be determined. A brief account of them follows.

SPECIAL UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE SOCIETIES.

BOLOGNA. As early as 1896 the director of the Bologna Savings Bank proposed a new type of personal accounts for the specific purpose of providing for involuntary unemployment, and for the benefit of these accounts the interest from a special fund of 200,000 lire ($38,600) was to be assigned.

Personal account books could be taken out by wage-earners over 14 years of age, born and living in Bologna, in the trades of mason, carpenter, blacksmith, roofer, white washer, marble worker, tinsmith, glass worker, and plasterer.

Each depositor was required to deposit within a certain time 5 lire or 3 lire (97 cents or 58 cents), according to whether he was of age or not.

After the time for making the deposits had elapsed, the depositors, if deprived of employment without any fault of theirs, were entitled to receive a daily benefit of 60 centesimi (12 cents) for minors and 1 lira (19 cents) for persons of age. This benefit was continued for not over 40 days, beginning with the sixth day of unemployment, and was payable every 3 days.

If the interest on the special fund should become exhausted the depositors were to be entitled to receive the amounts of their deposits and interest, the total grant not to exceed 40 lire ($7.72). Unemployment due to sickness or accidents was excluded, other agencies existing for these forms of relief.

The depositor was required to furnish a certificate from his employer and from 4 wage-earners not unemployed, in the same or similar branches of industry.

The heirs of an insured person who died during the insurance period without having received any benefits received the deposits and interest. The same rule was to apply if the bank decided to discontinue the experiment.

This plan enabled the insured to purchase for 3 or 5 lire (58 cents or 97 cents) an insurance of 40 days benefits, or a total of 24 or 40 lire ($4.63 or $7.72), but, on the other hand, there was the possibility of losing the deposited amount if the person insured did not suffer from unemployment within the period. This was the result of the application of the ordinary principle of mutual insurance. But this principle of mutuality was not sufficiently developed to overcome the fear of losing the deposit, and the plan never achieved any great popularity.

During the first year of the operation of this plan only 27 workers availed themselves of this opportunity, their deposits together with interest accrued amounting to 117.59 lire ($22.69), while the amount of benefits granted reached 660.40 lire ($127.46).