Amendments to make it a workable measure and one likely to be accepted by all classes of employers and employed. Whether the right hon. the Home Secretary has gone too far or not in amending the Act of 1897, or in extending the benefits of the Act to further trades the general principle being admitted we must wait to see; but, so far as we could gather from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, the measure is satisfactory, and I trust, therefore, that the House will agree to the First and Second Readings, leaving all these details to be considered fully in Committee.

Extract 3

LABOUR REPLY TO THE HOME SECRETARY

(Mr. G. N. Barnes, Commons, March 26, 1906)

MR. BARNES said he wished to offer a few observations on the speech of the right hon. the Home Secretary and on the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman had asked leave to introduce into the House. First of all, on behalf of the Party with which he was identified, he welcomed the right hon. Gentleman's statement of the projected Bill as being, to a large extent at all events, satisfactory from their point of view; and he could promise that it would have a helpful and sympathetic consideration with a view to having it amended in their direction and passed into law. It seemed to him that the name of the Bill was to some extent a misnomer. The Bill would not compensate. It provided merely for a maintenance being given to a man who was injured. Therefore, it seemed to the Labour party that there should be some Amendment in the name of the Bill which would more accurately define what the Bill really was. On the whole, however, he felt satisfied that not only in its form but in its scope, as indicated in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, the Bill would to a very large extent 1 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. 154, col. 900 sqq.

meet the wishes of the Labour party. The Act of 1897 had been of inestimable benefit to a very large number of working people throughout the length and breadth of the country. With all its defects and blemishes it had proved one of the best bits of social legislation that had been put on the Statute Book in recent years. He wished to go a little further and to pay a well-merited tribute of indebtedness to one who was largely instrumental in getting that Act passed through Parliament. That right hon. Gentleman long ago contributed articles to magazines advocating what was then a novel principle in English law. He introduced that principle as an Amendment on the Bill of 1893, and had it afterwards successfully embodied in the Act of 1897. It was needless to say that reference was made to the right hon. Member for West Birmingham [Joseph Chamberlain]. He was all the more satisfied to pay that tribute of indebtedness to the right hon. Gentleman, for it was the vogue to jump upon his by no means prostrate form. A good deal had been said as to the deficiencies of the Act of 1897, but he believed that a great deal of the litigation and of the money which had found its way into the lawyers' pockets had been caused by the confusing lines between the "ins" and the "outs." He remembered the report of a debate eight or nine years ago in which it was predicted by hon. Gentlemen in this House, especially those who represented the mine-owners, that the Bill would lead to vast litigation; and some even went the length of describing it as a " Lawyers' Employment Bill." He had had a good deal of experience in regard to the working of the Act of 1897, and had had the opportunity of hearing the testimony of others who had had more, and all he could say was that the cases which had been settled by the payment of money without litigation at all were from 90 to 95 per cent of the whole. From that point of view the Bill had been on the whole satisfactory; but there was no reason why the 5 or 10 per cent of litigation should not also be reduced. In his belief, there would be no complete solution of the difficulty until all men, no matter what employment they were in, were included in the scope of the

measure. It had been said that only dangerous trades were included in the last Act, but agricultural labourers were afterwards included, and no one would seriously contend that agriculture was a dangerous employment. He was sorry to hear that, while anyone employing more than five men was to be included in the Bill, all small employers having fewer than five employees were to be excluded. That would be a fruitful source of litigation and confusion which would benefit the lawyers and the agents of the insurance companies. He hoped that the Bill would be amended in these respects. He knew many small workshops where fewer than five men were employed under the most dangerous conditions probably more dangerous than in large workshops. But it would be no good including them on paper only. Therefore, if they were to be included, there must be some provision whereby the money should be there when wanted. That carried with it some form of compulsory insurance. The right hon. Gentleman said that the time had not yet come for that. That remained to be seen. He was inclined to think that compulsory insurance would even now be necessary; but if the Bill was carried further than its present scope, he was certain that compulsory insurance would be absolutely necessary. He knew that there were some who said that compulsory insurance, or insurance of any character, carried with it increased risk. There might be something in that argument, but, after all, the contention seemed to him to be advanced by those who strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel. . .

Extract 4

MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN ON WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION

(Commons, March 26, 1906)

MR. CHAMBERLAIN 1: There was no desire to obstruct the Bill in any part of the House. But, in regard to the time before the compensation should commence to be paid, he would press the 1 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. 154, col. 928 sqq.

representatives of the workingmen, both inside and outside the House, to consider very carefully whether a provision which at first sight might appear to be to the advantage of the workmen, might not ultimately be not so much to the disadvantage of the manufacturer or the employer, as to the workman himself. They should not desire to press on the employer any expenditure which was not clearly in the interest of the workmen, because, after all, whatever political economists might say on the subject, they all knew that one of the factors in wages was the expense of production, and if the expense of production was raised beyond certain limits by legislation, it was conceivable that some part of that charge might be transferred by the employer on to the workmen. Before the Bill of 1897 was introduced, he consulted a large number of people acquainted with the principles of compensation insurance, some of the principal officials of the great friendly and benefit societies in this country, and representatives of insurance companies. They all pressed upon him that in the interests of the workman, as well as of the employer, a distinct and definite period should lapse before compensation was payable. The reason was that, after all, there was no great pressure for compensation where the accident was so slight as to be represented by no more than a fortnight's illness. In the second place, it was found by some of the friendly societies necessary to protect themselves by a delay before compensation became payable, in order to prevent fraud. He asked whether it was worth while putting fifty per cent more expense upon the employer in order merely to get compensation for the first fortnight's absence from work. He urged the representatives of the workmen to consider whether it was in their interests to press for an alteration in the law which would be found to be extremely unpopular and would place an increased charge on employers everywhere. When the Bill of 1897 was before the House he had returns furnished to him of the number of accidents which took place in every great trade in the country, and calculations were deduced from these returns as to what the operation of the

Bill would cost. At the time he believed that the statements made by the opponents of the Bill as to its cost were greatly exaggerated, and that had been proved to be the case, because after some years' experience of the working of the Act it was found that his original calculations were absolutely correct. He was informed that of late years there had been a considerable increase in the number of accidents. Why was that? [AN HON. MEMBER ON THE LABOUR BENCHES: Speeding up the machinery.] Well, if speeding up machinery had taken place, with the result of an increase in the number of accidents, then he for one was glad that means were provided for compensation. If the House reduced the close period, as it had been called, to seven days, he thought they would open the way to a great deal more litigation, and to that extent they would injure rather than benefit the working classes.

Extract 5

SIR CHARLES DILKE ON WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION

(Commons, April 4, 1906)

...

SIR CHARLES DILKE1: . . . The other day - and he dared say they would see the same to-day- the House seemed inclined to bless almost unanimously the principle of universal insurance, but, having done that, to take no steps towards giving it effect. How long was that to go on? It was no new question; it was a very old question. In 1883 Germany adopted her present law. He was not advocating the adoption of that law here. It was too bound up in other laws for it to be practicable here; but in 1883-1884 Germany and Austria called the attention of the world to the subject, and they adopted their law, admirable from their point of view, which so completely dealt with the question for them, and which had received only unimportant amendments of detail from

1 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. 155, col. 523 sqq.