Report Of The Departmental Committee Appointed To Inquire Into The Law Relating To Compensation For Injuries To Workingmen PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ...I do not believe, however, that the principle of personal liability is one which can be effectively applied--especially in the case of small employers--unless accompanied by compulsory insurance. I am therefore in favour of compulsion, provided insurers are offered national insurance as an alternative to that with the ordinary Companies. I dissent from my colleagues on one or two minor points covered in the Report. 1st. In regard to the fortnight period of exemption (paragraph 211), . I know that the great bulk of unskilled, and especially of women workers, are paid at so low a rate of wages that it is impossible for them to provide even for a fortnight's stoppage from work. I think therefore that the provisions of the Act should begin to apply at the end of a certain number of days--say four or six--as provided for by Trades Unions and Friendly Societies. These bodies have found the.shorter period quite sufficient to exclude cases of minor injury, and, with the suggested improvements in regard to medical examinations, I think the same would apply to the Compensation Act, if the shorter period of exemption were adopted. 2nd. I am not in favour of the principle of workmen's contributions as applied to seamen, and I cannot therefore subscribe to paragraph 302 of the Report, which suggests such contributory principle. If there are conditions appertaining to the seamen's calling which justify relief being given to the shipowner, this should, I think, be afforded by some Governmental provision. I agree, however, with all the other proposals in regard to seamen which on the whole, I think, treat that body of workers as generously as others embraced by the Act, but which, at the same time, make provision in a way appropriate to the special...