EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY AS AN INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM received in the course of employment, ex cluding only those ' ' attributable to the seri ous and wilful misconduct of the workman himself. " It is further required that the acci dent shall have disabled the workman from earning full wages for two weeks. The compensation paid is based upon the dis ability and, in case of death, by the degree to which the dead man's family were depen dent upon him for its support. The maxi mum lump sum payable is three years' wages, not to aggregate, however, more than £ 300. If for two weeks after the injury the workman continues to be unable to earn full wages, compensation begins and con tinues as long as necessary, the amount pay able not to exceed half pay and the compen sation plus wages earned during disability not to exceed full wages. It must be re membered, in looking at these figures, that wages in Europe are considerably lower than in America; under an American Act, therefore, the rates of compensation in dollars and cents would properly be larger. Disputes as to liability for, or amount of, compensation are referred to arbitrators chosen by the parties or the county court judges. The remedy afforded by the measure is alternative to the Employers' Liability Act and to the common law; in theory it does not supersede either. In fact, however, the returns for 1904, the latest available, show that there were 3,625 cases which came to the attention of the courts under the Com pensation Act and 598 under the Em ployers' Liability Act, the latter probably representing nearly the total number of actions for damages as distinguished from claims for compensation. The cases which came before the courts do not include those settled by agreement, and, to quote the official report "as in previous years, the great majority of claims were settled by agreement and only a small percentage were made the subject of formal arbitra tion. Even in cases of death, in which large sums would generally be payable and
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which would therefore be the most likely to be disputed, not more than 25 per cent (of the total deaths due to industrial acci dent) came in any way before the courts, and this figure includes a good many cases finally settled out of court and others in which the only question was the apportion ment of the compensation among defen dants." The total number of such deaths was 2,065 m I904. of which but 524 came before the county courts and of which but 12 were brought under the Employers' Liability Act. These figures show pretty clearly the estimation in which the Compensation Act is held by the British workman. The reasons which prompt the workmen to ask compensation rather than damages are not far to seek. The British artisan appears to have realized that the amount of which he is sure under the Compensation Act and which goes into his pocket is about as large as that which he has a chance of getting from an English jury after paying expenses; that in an action for damages it begins to come in practically at once; and that if he is fit for work he comes back to his job. To us in America, the experience of Great Britain must be intensely suggestive. It is true, perhaps, that before the Compensation Act was passed, the amount of employers' liability litigation may not have been as large in Great Britain as it is with us. This goes to show not that a Compensation Act could not be devised to meet our needs, but rather that our needs are greater. The Com mittee appointed by Governor Bates of Massachusetts in 1903 to consider among others, the problems of employers' liability makes the statement that "It has been estimated that of this large volume of per sonal injury cases (which engages almost the entire time of many sessions of courts and demands from time to time the appointment of new judges) those particularly relating to employees constitute from one eighth to one seventh." The abuses which have grown up in the practice of accident law a«-e
