resulting in his injury. It is not one of the risks of his employment, peculiarly so, that while he is cleaning his engine his fireman should inadvertently start it and he be injured. The Continental term, however, includes both of these.

Germany was the first government to embody this idea in legislation. Her example has been followed by other legislatures until at the present time seven nations have introduced this principle into their law. These seven nations, in the order in which they have come into line, are, Germany, Austria, Norway, Great Britain, Denmark, Italy and France. Germany's law dates from 1885. Austria's from 1890. In the other five states the legislation is either very recent, or, as with England, France and Italy, though on the statute books, it has yet to go into operation. In England the statute was passed in August, 1897, and went into operation on the first of July, 1898. Of course there are no figures or statistics of its operation yet to be obtained.

Four of the countries in question, Germany, Austria, Norway and Italy, have secured the workman his compensation for accident and injury by establishing systems of compulsory insurance. That is, the state compels the employer to insure the workmen up to certain amounts either by means of state insurance or mutual insurance. The other three countries, Great Britain, Denmark and France, establish with greater or less guarantee the workman's right to direct indemnity from his employer.

But these two great divisions give but an imperfect idea of the diversities and degrees of state intervention. In Germany the insurance is effected through mutual insurance corporations established by the employers and minutely regulated by law. In Austria there is a district establishment for insurance in each province, bringing together all the kinds of business subject to insurance, and managed by joint bureaus composed of workmen, employers and provincial magistrates. In Norway, the insurance is taken out through a national establishment covering the whole country, and guaranteed by the state. In Italy employers have the choice of insuring at a national accident bureau or of forming mutuals among themselves.

Of the countries where insurance is not compulsory, in France, if the employer does insure in mutual companies, or at premiums which are regulated by the state and in companies subject to state regulation, he frees himself from all further obligation toward his workmen. In England and Denmark the state does not guarantee to the injured party or his representatives the indemnity provided by the law in so absolute a manner. It does not put itself in the place of the bankrupt employer or insurer. But by compelling the payment of a capital sum in case of death or permanent incapacity it reduces the risks from the employer's bankruptcy to a minimum. In both Denmark and England also the workman has the resource of the common law always open to him; even if his employer does insure, the workman is free to reject the insurance and sue him in unliquidated damage.

Confining ourselves still to facts, before we give the reasons which have been urged in behalf of such a scheme, and before we consider what the introduction of such a principle means, in English law especially, it will be interesting to look at the results of the application of the insurance system in those two jurisdictions where it has been in operation for a term of years.

Let us take Germany first. The official declaration of the purposes of this insurance is this: "Imperial Obligatory Insurance, based upon the mutuality or autonomy of those interested, embraces without distinction of nationality all persons in Germany who work for wages; it gives to each insured in case of sickness and accident or invalidity or old age a legal right to a system of assistance clearly determined and collected without the expense of procedure." This statement may be true as regards what are termed sick benefits, but it is not true with regard to accidents or permanent disability. It has not been extended to farmers nor to the smaller forms of industry. It does not include the workmen in any establishment having less than ten employees, nor does it include the workmen of the Empire or of the different German states or of any ComNo accident damages are given where the victim is not under treatment on the ninety-first day after the accident or has not before that time become permanently disabled or dead.

The last complete set of figures displaying the working of this system for Germany are for the year 1895. In this year 18,389,468 were insured, at a cost to the employers of 68,424,000 marks, or roughly, $17,000,000.00. It cost one-fifth of this amount to administer the system. Twenty millions of marks more, or $5,000,000.00, were assessed upon the employers for other purposes. The striking feature of this German system is the growth of the business of accidents, so to speak. In five years the number of persons in a thousand insured who met with an accident increased from 6.3 to 21.7. The indemnity paid for each person insured increased from 1.4 marks to 6.4 marks, and the tax on the employer for each person insured increased from 2.98 marks to 6.86 marks. The German figures also show that in the ten years of operation the annual number of accidents declared has increased from eighty-two thousand in round numbers in 1886 to two hundred and five thousand in 1895. And the number of accidents indemnified per every one thousand declared has been increased from 11,771 in 1886 to 16,451 in 1895. These figures show that not only have more workmen been hurt, but that they have been hurt worse.

There has been a matter of some discussion in connection with this subject as to what proportion of accidents was caused by the fault of the workman, what proportion was caused by the fault of the employer, and what proportion was due to causes which could not be exactly traced to one or the other. The general opinion has been, that from 50% to 55% of the accidents were inevitable or due to causes that could not be fastened upon either employer or employee, and that the rest were to be divided about half and half between employer and workman. Now at Muhlhaus in Germany, careful record has been kept since 1887. The number of insured in 1893 was sixty-one thousand against fifty-nine thousand insured in 1887, so that the comparison is with substantially identical bodies. In 1887 there were 98 accidents indemnified, and in 1893 there were 168. Now the accidents that were paid for and due to the fault of the employer in 1887 were 22, but in 1893 they were 17. Similar accidents due to the workman directly in 1887 were 24, and in 1893 they were 57. Those imputable to workmen

less directly in 1887 were 17 and in 1893 27; while the accidents imputable to chance were respectively 35 and 62.

The moral effect of the system in Germany seems to be evident only in the employers, as is shown by the decrease in the accidents imputable to them. These accidents of course are those arising from defective plant, unsafe location, insufficient inspection, etc. On the other hand, complaint is made of willful disregard of rules on the part of the workmen. They have refused to comply with preventive measures or to take the necessary protective precautions.

As to the matter of litigation, there were 25,348 cases litigated in 1893, nearly half of which were caused by refusal of the authorized boards to allow any indemnity at all. In Austria the same figures of progressive increase in the number of slight accidents are to be observed. The financial side of the Austrian experiment differs very materially from the German. Whoever has made up the budget has been yearly a little too sanguine about the number of accidents that would have to be paid for, and every year the expenditures have exceeded the receipts. In 1895 the excess of expenditure over receipt in the administration of official insurance was 867,452 florins. The cost of insurance for five years has steadily risen both for the individual and on the basis of a thousand florins of wages. In 1890 the cost per individual insured was 2.67 florins. In 1895, it was 3.54, an increase of roughly 21 per cent., and the cost from a thousand florins of wages paid in the same time from 13.96 florins to 15.20 florins.

When we come to an analysis of the kinds of accidents which have relatively increased, we find, as would be expected, that the number of deaths remains quite constant. The cases of total permanent incapacity and of temporary incapacity have about doubled. While the cases of partial incapacity, that is where a man claims that he is permanently unable to do a full day's work, though he can do some part of a day's work, and by reason of such disability is entitled to a small annual payment all his life, have nearly trebled.

To the Yankee it looks very much as if, in the German system, meaning by that the insurance system, the workman had delib

erately "sojered" on the employer. Of the social and moral effects upon the workman we find, first, that the workman remains without responsibility in regard to his conduct during his work. He does not use the apparatus furnished for him by the employer or by the insuring corporations, to such an extent that there is a loud call among the German employers for legislation which shall make a workman responsible in some measure for accidents. As to his reception of the help which is tendered him, the insuring corporations of employers have found it necessary to construct and maintain hospitals at their own expense and to support physicians and surgeons. In these hospitals the injured man exaggerates his injuries, complains of imaginary pains, and counterbalances the wholesome effects of the treatment by seeking to produce the most striking appearance of incapacity for serious work. As one writer expresses it, "simulation is the leprosy of public insurance." While the workman is doing his part inside the hospital, his friends outside are laboring under a conviction that he is not being cared for in his own interest, but in the interest of the reduction of the allowance that must be paid him. The socialist meanwhile calls the injured man a prisoner, because he is compelled to be treated.

As I have said, the English act was passed in 1897, and differs from the German and Austrian acts in that it provides for no obligatory insurance. It does provide, however, that in case of accident the employer shall be liable to compensate the workman according to a fixed schedule of payments. But it is to be noted that the act is restricted in its application to certain employments, which are railways, factories, mines, quarries, engineering works and buildings more than thirty feet high, where scaffolding is used, or machinery, in the process of construction, repairs or destruction. As with all these statutes, the injury must arise out of or in connection with his employment, and it must happen to a workman. The workman is defined to be anybody engaged in an employment to which the act applies. To receive compensation, however, the workman must be disabled for at least two weeks from earning full wages at the work in which he is engaged. When the injury is caused by the personal negligence or willful act of the employer, that is,