well-to-do appeared to him to prove conclusively that a heavier burden for such a good reason could well be borne by the trades and industries of this country. He did not accept the suggestion that the small employers should be excluded from liability. He understood the Home Secretary to advocate the exclusion of small employers because they were indifferent and would not face their responsibilities. It had been said that such men were very often ignorant and did not do what the law called upon them to do. He had yet to learn that indifference to and ignorance of the law were sufficient reasons for escaping one's responsibilities in regard to the common law of the land, and in this matter he thought the Government should not exclude such a large number of workers as would be excluded if these small employers of labour were enabled to escape their responsibilities. The small employers of labour in respect of their profits and trading conditions knew how to combine, and if they could not singly accept the liability which the principle of this Bill proposed, then they might act in association in order to insure the lives and limbs of their workmen. He submitted also that sufficient reasons had not been given by the Secretary of State for the Home Department for the exclusion of domestic servants from the privileges of the Bill. Reference had been made by the right hon. Gentleman to the large number of domestic servants employed by working people. The Labour party made no plea that the wage-earners of the country should escape their liabilities in respect of injuries sustained by those whom they employed. If necessary, they should call upon the ordinary workingman to insure himself against the risk of accidents that might befall his domestic servant. He did not think they ought to exclude clerks from the operation of the Bill. They should not forget that there was a class of clerk who moved about large works and shipping yards amongst machinery in order to take down details, and he incurred almost as great a risk as the ordinary workingman. It had been said upon both sides of the House that it was not advisable to depart from the present limit of a fortnight, because of the

malingering there was or might be if workingmen were entitled to compensation from the first day of injury. He would point out that if a workingman went home and said he had been hurt, that would not be taken as evidence of the injury, and his word would not be taken as the foundation for the payment of compensation. The doctor's evidence as to injury and incapacity would be required before any workman could set up his title to compensation. He thought the officers of the insurance company, the agents of the employer, and all the things attaching to a workingman's condition of work would protect employers against the risk of having to pay when a man was not disabled at all. There were many points dealt with in this Bill which Labour Members warmly welcomed, but having accepted the payment of compensation as a principle, and that industries must bear the cost of accidents and deaths, he submitted that the House had had sufficient experience of industrial life to justify it in going further in regard to the amount of compensation, and in regard to the other items which he had mentioned.

Extract 8

FORESHADOWING NATIONAL INSURANCE

(Mr. Herbert J. Gladstone, Secretary of State for the Home
Department, Commons, December 13, 1906)

MR. GLADSTONE1:

He had no occasion to detain the House long upon this subject. The recent discussion extended over four days, during which all the leading points of the Bill were fully discussed. But there was one matter upon which he desired to say a few words. The House in its collective wisdom had shown an inveterate hostility to all the attempts of the Government to exempt from the operation of this Bill the small employers. Now practically all classes of persons under contract of service, whether the employment was dangerous or safe, were included in the purview 1 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. 167, col. 693 sqq.

of this Bill. While 6,000,000 people were brought within the operation of the Act in 1897, and 1,000,000 in 1900, there were now 6,000,000 in addition. This great extension did involve benefit he hoped great benefit - but it also, naturally, involved some danger to which this House should not shut their eyes. A number of small employers would be brought under the operation of this Act, and it was to be hoped that they would be raised to a sense of the duty imposed upon them by it to a sense of the necessity which lay upon them to insure against the liability to which they would be exposed, in order to be in a position to meet it in compensating a workman who might be injured. Experience showed that a mass of these people would not insure, whatever steps were taken, and that experience was reinforced by the opinion expressed in the Committee which considered this question. It was pointed out that 24 per cent of those engaged in the building trades did not choose to insure, although the Act had been in operation for some six or seven years. If the Government required any pressure, this knowledge and this information from the Committee would hasten their desire to deal with the whole subject of national insurance in relation to the law of employers' liability. But in the meanwhile they would do the best they could, through Government agencies or otherwise, to warn employers, great and small, throughout the country, of the risks they were under, and also to tell the workpeople of this country what rights were given to them under this Act.

...

Extract 9

THIRD READING OF WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION BILL

(Mr. Joseph Walton, Commons, December 13, 1906)

MR. WALTON 1:

workers

.

He felt sure that the 6,000,000 additional men and women to whom this measure did what was

an act of justice in regard to this matter, would greatly appreciate 1 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. 167, col. 708.

their inclusion within the scope of the measure. He had had no sympathy or support whatever from the Tory majority in the House, when he had introduced his Bill, but he gathered from speeches made by Members of the same political Party now sitting in Opposition that he might regard them as repentant sinners. It was indeed a death-bed repentance when they rose the other night and proposed the inclusion of 2,000,000 of domestic servants within the scope of the Bill. He welcomed that inclusion, but it was so hastily adopted by the House that he hoped, now that they were included, it was clearly understood that in case of accident they were to receive not only half their wages, but half the cost of their board and lodging as well, in case they were deprived of that, as that formed the greatest part of their earnings. He cordially supported the Bill.

Extract 10.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT, 1906

(6 Edw. 7, ch. 58)

An Act to consolidate and amend the Law with respect to Compensation to Workmen for Injuries suffered in the course of their Employment. (21st December 1906)

Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

1. Liability of Employers to Workmen for Injuries

(1) If in any employment personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment is caused to a workman, his employer shall, subject as herein-after mentioned, be liable to pay compensation in accordance with the First Schedule to this Act.

(a) The employer shall not be liable under this Act in respect of any injury which does not disable the workman for

a period of at least one week from earning full wages at the work at which he was employed:

(b) When the injury was caused by the personal negligence or wilful act of the employer or of some person for whose act or default the employer is responsible, nothing in this Act shall affect any civil liability of the employer, but in that case the workman may, at his option, either claim compensation under this Act or take proceedings independently of this Act; but the employer shall not be liable to pay compensation for injury to a workman by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment both independently of and also under this Act, and shall not be liable to any proceedings independently of this Act, except in case of such personal negligence or wilful act as aforesaid : (c) If it is proved that the injury to a workman is attributable to the serious and wilful misconduct of that workman, any compensation claimed in respect of that injury shall, unless the injury results in death or serious and permanent disablement, be disallowed.

(3) If any question arises in any proceedings under this Act as to the liability to pay compensation under this Act (including any question as to whether the person injured is a workman to whom this Act applies), or as to the amount or duration of compensation under this Act, the question, if not settled by agreement, shall, subject to the provisions of the First Schedule to this Act, be settled by arbitration, in accordance with the Second Schedule to this Act.

(4) If, within the time herein-after in this Act limited for taking proceedings, an action is brought to recover damages independently of this Act for injury caused by any accident, and it is