that time. Then the right hon. Member for West Birmingham [Mr. Joseph Chamberlain] brought the matter before this House, not on the lines of his subsequent Bill, which they were now amending, but on the lines of the Amendment. He moved an Amendment in 1893 to the Employers' Liability Bill, raising this very question. He moved that no amendment of the law could be satisfactory which did not provide compensation for workmen for all injuries. He made only one exception, and he stated that he had placed his Amendment upon the Paper with a view to telling the House an alternative system of dealing with the whole question. He quoted a conversation he had had with a well-known former Member, Mr. Knowles, who had just died, a great Tory employer, who was of opinion that universal liability was the only satisfactory settlement. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham added that universal liability meant universal insurance. Within the last few weeks it had been alleged that it was too soon to bring about so sudden a change, but 1893 was a good many years ago, and it was then already alleged that the thing was premature. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham asked the then Liberal Government, "Why do you not take this opportunity of completing your work?" It was answered that public opinion was not prepared for so great a change, and he said, "How do you know that? It is the duty of Government to lead and instruct public opinion. Opinion is making rapid strides in this direction." That was in 1893, and yet they had had nothing in that direction, although they raised these speeches and discussions against the right hon. Member for West Birmingham in 1897 and since. They were told that the Bill of 1897 was a tentative measure, and it was suggested that ultimately steps might be taken in their direction. In 1898 France and Italy both suddenly adopted the very principle which he was now maintaining, a principle far ahead of that of 1897, of far more general satisfaction to the workmen, far more complete, and having the effect of giving far more money to the working-classes than any Bill in operation in this country or than the Bill now proposed. The late Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr. Lyttelton, following the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, actually went so far as to suggest that the Workmen's Compensation Act was a handicap from which our competitors were free, but in France it was beyond all doubt five times more severe than it was here. There could also be no doubt that the benefits which it directly conferred upon the working-classes went further than our own. It was carried suddenly in Italy and France, and it was a compromise — such a compromise as they might expect to get in this country between those who insisted on the individual liability of the employer, those who wanted to make the liability as little as possible, and those who wanted to make it a matter of State insurance. Those systems had been working close at hand in Europe satisfactorily from that time to this. . . His own main point was this: that by shutting their eyes for so long a time and giving the go-by to this question, they were not doing what the country expected and what so many hon. Members told the electors, namely, that they were going to work towards obtaining complete compensation for all workmen injured in all classes of trade. In this matter we had fallen into arrear as compared with other countries. Workmen's compensation treaties between France and Italy, Italy and Switzerland, and Italy and Germany were signed in 1904. Similar labour treaties were made between Austria and Germany in 1905 and between France and Belgium in 1906. Up to the present this country had not been able to come to any treaty engagement of that kind, and, therefore, they were unable to give or receive the advantages which all those States were conferring upon their workmen abroad. He appealed to the Government to give careful consideration to this subject in regard to which they were falling day by day more heavily into arrear. . . Extract 6 EMPLOYER'S ATTITUDE TOWARD WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION (Mr. H. G. Montgomery, Commons, April 4, 1906) MR. MONTGOMERY1 asked the indulgence of the House for a few moments while he put before them the point of view of the employer. He wished to give employees the fullest measure of security, but at the same time the employer was entitled to know what amount of compensation he had to pay. At the present time he did not know. Unfortunately, he was one of those small employers of labour who, when the Act was introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham [Joseph Chamberlain], joined with others in forming a mutual insurance of their own. He was sorry to say the speculation was a very bad one. They paid away a large sum in the first place in endeavouring to ascertain what the Workmen's Compensation Act meant. They had to fight a number of cases, and he was very much inclined to think that the ambiguity of the Act was a godsend to half the solicitors and barristers of this country. They had to defend a number of claims that ought never to have been brought. There were legal gentlemen who sent touts to the hospital in which an injured man was, telling him that if a claim were preferred under the Employers' Liability Act instead of under the Workmen's Compensation Act, the solicitor would be able to get a very much larger sum. As very often happened, the man was persuaded to make a claim under the Employers' Liability Act. He knew of an instance where a man had a sprained ankle, and they were willing to pay compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, but the tout at a hospital got hold of the man, and a claim was made under the Employers' Liability Act. In the end the jury gave a 1 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. 155, col. 548 sqq. large sum, with the result that the firm had to pay £400 for a sprained ankle, whilst the man was said to be dancing a jig a few days after. He was told that the money did not all go to the workman, but that it was divided between solicitor and client. He was not sure that it was wise to give any workman a lump sum as compensation, because he was very often inclined to spend it in ways that he should not, and in a very liberal manner amongst his friends. He thought that the Act ought to cover every kind of accident that might possibly arise. He was in entire agreement with the extension of the Act, and he should like to see it extended to every form of service, even to the domestic who cleaned the doorstep in the morning. He noticed that it was provided in the Bill that if the employer could be proved to have been guilty of negligence, he would have to pay a larger sum, but if the employee was found guilty of negligence, it did not say that he should receive a less sum. He did not think that was fair, because what was sauce for the goose was also sauce for the gander. It had been proved over and over again that negligence was not wilful misconduct on the part of the employee. He knew a case where a man was engaged to feed a brick-making machine, and instead of putting the clay in with a shovel, as he ought to have done, he used his foot. On one occasion his foot was caught and he lost it. He received compensation and also got a wooden leg. Not more than two months after, the wooden leg found its way into the machine as well, and the man received a second measure of compensation. They could proceed against the employer for allowing the man to put his leg or wooden leg into the machine, but they should have an Act which would deal fairly between employer and employed. The House had been told that insurance companies did not make any money out of workmen's compensation. He was sorry to differ from the hon. Member for the St. Austell Division [Mr. William McArthur] on this point, because he believed that if the insurance was on a large scale, a large amount of profit could be made. A larger body of factory inspectors would be better able than anybody else to prevent accidents. If the Government would take this question up as a business matter and conduct it on business lines, he ventured to say that before two or three years had elapsed they would have made sufficient profit to take sixpence off the income tax and give every employee over seventy-five years of age an old age pension. Extract 7 EMPLOYEE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION (Mr. J. R. Clynes, Commons, April 4, 1906) MR. CLYNES1 thought that they had heard too much about the small employer in this debate, and that some share of their pity should go out to those who suffered from injuries which this Bill proposed to meet. The debate had not supplied so far any reminder of the number of people injured and killed during their daily labour. He believed there were about 400 workpeople killed every month in this country, and about 7000 injured in one way or another. The first point which he desired to refer to was the insufficiency of the compensation proposed by the Bill. The compensation proposed was half the average earnings of the man. He submitted that if a man fairly needed all his wages when he was well, the family needed even more than the whole of the man's wages when he was ill. Let them take as an illustration a man earning 30s. a week who was disabled for three weeks. The man would lose £4 10s., and under the Bill he would receive as compensation only 30s. He submitted that that was not generous treatment, and they were entitled to call upon the Government to take a step in advance of the attitude assumed by the Government some years ago when the compensation law was first passed. They felt that the trades and industries generally could afford a greater strain. The profits of trading and the increase of the wealth of the 1 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. 155, col. 1203 sqq. |