HC Deb 09 March 1880 vol 251 cc715-40
MR. RAIKES,

in rising to call attention to the recommendations of the Royal Commissioners on Railway Accidents, respecting Compensation to Railway Servants injured in the performance of their duty; and to move— That the exceptional character of the services performed and dangers incurred by Railway Servants in the discharge of their duty calls for the immediate and special attention of Her Majesty's Government; and that this House is of opinion that a change in the Law is required, by which, notwithstanding the legal doctrine of common employment, adequate compensation shall be secured to Railway Servants in all cases of injury to which they have not personally contributed. said: In introducing the important Resolution which I venture to bring forward to-night, I am, I hope, fully sensible of the very great difficulty of the large question which may appear to be raised by it, as well as of the delicacy required in endeavouring to separate from that large question the particular matter to which I desire to direct the attention of this House. It is a subject which must be approached with great care, with very grave consideration, and, if I may venture to say so, with perfect temper; and although I do not find upon the Notice Paper evidence that this perfect command of temper is absolutely universal, I shall endeavour in such remarks as I have to make to address myself simply to the question of public interest, and to consider the matter as if no such thing existed on the face of the earth as either the hon. Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin), or the Amendment of which he has given Notice. The special grounds which, as it appears to me, entitle this House and those who have studied the question to separate the case of the railway servants from the ordinary employés in other pursuits are briefly these—The first of them is, that the Railway Companies, whose liability is our present consideration, are virtually possessed of an enormous monopoly—the greatest monopoly which has ever existed in this country. Their possession of that monopoly is, I believe, entirely for the public advantage, and that is not a matter on which I desire to provoke any public controversy. I shall be one of the first to acknowledge that the way in which they have administered the great interests entrusted to their charge has been satisfactory, and that they have been actuated quite as much by public as by private motives in the performance of their obligations. But, in reality, the Railway Companies of this country are the possessors of a practical monopoly of the carrying trade, both in regard to passengers and goods, and that fact appears to me to place them in a perfectly different position from any other trader who does not fulfil the same conditions. When we come to examine the origin of this monopoly, we find that in every particular case it has been created by statute. The Railway Companies are the creatures of Parliament. The property which they possess, the powers which they exercise, the rights which they enjoy, the profits which they receive, are, all of them, created, regulated, and directed by the action of the Legislature. I do not know that there is any other commercial enterprize in this Empire which is at all to be compared with them in this respect, unless you take, perhaps, the case of some of the Gas and Tramway Companies. No doubt, there are other public companies which exercise similar rights under statute. No doubt, there are Water Companies and other bodies which enjoy the same powers; but it is not the universal rule that these Gas Companies or Water Companies are created by the action of Parliament. We are, all of us, familiar with Companies of that description, which are not in any way based upon Acts of Parliament; and although the rule may be that they come to Parliament for compulsory powers, which it is convenient for them to have, it cannot be said that the water enterprize or the gas enterprize of this country depends, as the railway enterprize does, wholly on the sanction and initiative of Parliament. Well, Sir, I think that having stated these two distinctive characteristics of the railway enterprize of this country, I shall have made out my case for regarding it from a somewhat different point of view from that of other employers of labour, whose trades have grown up with the growth of the nation, and have been practised from the earliest days, not merely of our history, but of all civilization. I think there is, however, a more important consideration still behind. If it were to be shown that any other body possessed the same mo- nopoly, and a monopoly created in the same manner, it would, I think, be exceedingly difficult for any such body—and I do not know of one that could put in the same claim—it would be exceedingly difficult for such a body to occupy the same position in regard to the public safety as that which is occupied by our Railway Companies. The Railway Companies are the custodians of a great deal of removable property. Her Majesty's subjects travel in every part of the Empire in enormous numbers by their means. They take, I should be the first to confess, extraordinary and most successful precautions to protect the lives and limbs of those of whom they have the care; but the fact is, I think, indisputable that they are more concerned in preserving the lives and limbs of Her Majesty's subjects than any other industry that exists in the country. I shall be told, perhaps, that mines are much more frequently the cause of death and injury to the persons employed in them than railways; but, so far as mines are concerned, they affect only the persons employed. They do not affect the lives or the personal safety of persons who are not in actual employment in them. Therefore, the position which I wish to take up tonight is, that the change of the law I am desirous of recommending is not merely a matter of the interest and the advantage of the railway servants, but that it is, in a very large degree, a matter of public interest, and that public interest is very greatly concerned in the better and more effectual protection of the lives and limbs of the servants of the Railway Companies. It is very easy to regard this question either from the point of view of a railway director or a railway servant, and nothing can be more convenient than to take either of those views. But I do not ask the House to approach the matter from one point of view or the other. If I were merely endeavouring to make out a case—and I think a very strong case might be made out—from the point of view of the interests of the railway servants, I should not, at all events, satisfy myself. What I wish this House to see in the course of the discussion is that this is a matter not merely in the interests of the railway servants, but of the interest of the public, which is inseparable from the due protection and security of those who serve them on railways. Well, Sir, the particular Re- port to which I desire to draw attention is the Report of the Royal Commissioners on Railway Accidents, which was issued in the year 1877. And the recommendation to which I wish to draw attention is, that in which they point out that, in spite of the doctrine of common employment, a case to their satisfaction has been made out for granting compensation for injury to railway servants in such cases as those in which the injuries might be occasioned by persons exercising delegated authority. I ask for particular attention to the words "delegated anthority," because in those words lies the whole gist of the matter. The Commissioners, in 1877, made a general Report, and I am bound to say that one of the Commissioners, Mr. Harrison, who, I believe, was placed on the Commission as the special representative of the Railway Companies, and to whose entire fitness for the office the railway servants themselves bear full testimony—Mr. Harrison dissented from this part of the Report. The Commissioners were inclined to find in the condition of the railway servants a special ground of hardship in the doctrine of common employment, and they had put the matter, so far as that claim was concerned, on the ground of the remoteness of the connection between employer and employed. I think Mr. Harrison, in his Report, has shown that this is a ground which applies to all other important industries, and, in fact, to the service of all Companies. But there was another Report, a Report by Mr. Gait, who also was a Member of the Royal Commission, and who, having concurred in this particular recommendation to which I call attention, added a supplementary Report which covered all the ground, and in which occur these very remarkable words. He says— There is another point of view from which we may consider this subject—that of the public interest, apart from those of the railway servant. The interests of the Companies, no doubt, are, to a limited extent, identical with those of the public. It would not he to their interest to neglect the means of safety to such an extent as that the amount paid for compensation would exceed the sum necessary for the safe management of their traffic; hut, on the other hand, it is obviously their interest to avoid the heavy expense they would incur in making such changes conducive to safety in their management as have been recommended, where the cost of such changes would exceed the sum paid for compensation. The nearer the interests of the Companies can be approximated to those of the public, the management of the Companies will he proportionately better, and their liability to compensation as regards their servants must naturally have a tendency towards the attainment of that object. It may, no doubt, be said that compensation to servants, including the compensation to passengers in such cases as I have suggested, would fall very far short of the sum that would be required to effect the improvements recommended by the inspecting officers of the Board of Trade. That, no doubt, is the case; but still it would be a step in the right direction, and would, to some extent, lessen the divergence of interests now existing between the Companies and the public. Now, Sir, I think it will be clear that the view which I have endeavoured, as well as I could, to put before the House is one very much better stated by Mr. Gait in his supplementary Report. He takes the ground that the public interest is closely identified with the improvement of the existing relations between the railway servants and their employers, and that these, therefore, possess a claim to consideration. Lord De La Warr has also published a separate Report. Since that time Lord De La Warr has been very active in making legislative proposals on this question. In the other House of Parliament Lord De La Warr has, on more than one occasion, propounded a Bill for dealing with all employés on the basis of the recommendation of the Royal Commissioners—namely, that of delegated authority. He introduced a Bill into the House of Lords last year. There is a Bill propounded by the same noble Lord before the House of Lords this year. There was a Bill before this House last year, brought in by the hon. Member for Hastings (Mr. T. Brassey) which substantially affirmed the same principle, although it was expressed in slightly different language. I admit that the difficulty of the position has not been greatly reduced by the introduction of these two measures, and I will tell the House why. The Government, last year, introduced a Bill dealing with the general liability of employers. That Bill was introduced into this House. It was based, I believe, mainly upon the recommendations of a Committee of this House which sat in the previous year, although it does not embody the views of the Chairman of the Committee, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for London University (Mr. Lowe), who proposed, in his Report, a very much bolder, and, I think, a more satisfactory mode of dealing with the question than that which was adopted by the Committee. But the Government introduced their measure, and their measure was that a liability should rest upon public Companies or upon employers generally for the acts of any superintending official as distinguished from the acts of any persons possessing "delegated authority." People not acquainted with the subject may say they fail to grasp the full difference between the two positions; but I think it will be apparent to anybody as soon as the subject is explained. The object was to meet the case of all employments, and I am not prepared to say that the Government could have gone further in dealing with the case of many or most employments. It is exceedingly difficult to introduce any change into recognized law, and particularly in regard to a system which has come to be one of the conditions of our commercial enter-prize, and which must affect all the industries of the land. I do not blame the Government for having stopped short at enforcing the liability of employers at the point of a superintendent official when they came to deal with employés generally. On the other hand, I am disposed to think that Lord De La Warr and the hon. Member for Hastings were right as far as the railway interest was concerned, although I cannot fail to see the difficulty of applying their principle to all commercial undertakings generally. I think that while the principle of Lord De La Warr and the hon. Member for Hastings might be thoroughly applicable to the case of railway servants alone, embodying as it does, in a legitimate form, the recommendation of the Royal Commissioners, I should not be prepared to say that it would be well for the commercial enterprize of the Kingdom at large if such a measure were made the basis of a general change of the law. Therefore, it is without any intentional disrespect to the hon. and learned Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan), that I have been particularly anxious to bring the case of the railway servants specially before the House, because I think that if we take action upon the recommendations of the Railway Accidents Commission under the special circumstances to which I have adverted, it may be comparatively easy to deal with the question as regards the railway servants. In this instance, you would be supported by the recommendation of the Commissioners, while I admit that it would be a matter of extraordinary difficulty to proceed on the same lines in regard to the liability of employers generally. I have been pressed to postpone the consideration of this question until the general question of employers' liability could be considered, and therefore it is that I have been particularly anxious to avail myself of this opportunity of pointing out how far I think this particular interest is to be severed from other interests. Having indicated, then, what seems to me to be the confusion engendered by the rival projects, I would ask the House to consider for a moment the Memorials presented by the railway servants to the Royal Commission, upon which the Royal Commissioners proceeded to come to the conclusion which I have stated. There were two Memorials before the Royal Commissioners. The first was one presented by the inspectors, engine-drivers, firemen, guards, shunters, pointsmen, porters, and platelayers employed on British railways; and, among other things, it says— These Returns, which are by the Companies classed under the latter head, we contend are in many instances put down to erroneous causes. Perhaps, before I come to this, I had better state that there are Returns, issued by the Board of Trade, which classify the deaths caused to railway servants as well as to passengers, according to the circumstances of each particular case, and state whether the persons injured or killed were in any way responsible for the accident. There is, however, a question between the employés, who have presented this Memorial, and the Railway Companies who employ them, as to how far the Returns presented by the Companies, returning as they do only a small portion of deaths and injuries as being occasioned by causes beyond the control of the persons killed or injured, are absolutely correct. I do not think there is any intention on the part of the railway servants to impute to the Railway Companies any desire to misrepresent the facts, or to give inaccurate Returns. But, in dealing with any question of this sort, it is quite clear that there may be differences of opinion as to the circumstances which led to a particular death; and it is not, I think, much to be wondered at that many cases should be put down by the Railway Companies as having been caused by their servants' default,?which the servants, on the other hand, think were caused by the default of the Companies. For instance, there are cases of death which have occurred among railway servants where the death did not occur until some time subsequent to the accident which occasioned it. If death takes place at once, a Coroner's jury sits, an inquest is held, a verdict is returned, and a man is reported to have been killed, either by his own fault or the fault of somebody else, as the case may be. But if the man is only injured, he may linger for months before he absolutely dies; but the death is due equally to the effects of the accident. Of such deaths no notice appears in these Returns. It is exceedingly probable, therefore, that without the smallest wish on the part of the Railway Companies to misrepresent the facts, there may be a considerable percentage of deaths and of injury which may have been caused by circumstances over which the parties most concerned had no control, although, in the eye of the Company, they were not occasioned by any fault on their part. I will now read an extract from the Memorial. The Memorialists say— These Returns, which are by the Companies classed under the latter head, we contend are in many instances put down to erroneous causes, and that in the majority of cases they are occasioned—1, by excessive hours of labour; 2, by the non-enforcement of certain of the Companies' rules ostensibly made for our protection; 3, by non-adaptation of the most approved appliances conducive to safety in the working of railways; 4, by the want of proper accommodations in working the traffic; 5, by the insufficient number of men employed. Well, Sir, as I have said, there is a second Memorial. The second Memorial was presented from the railway servants generally. In that Memorial it is stated— By the Return of accidents to railway servants published by the Board of Trade, it is shown that 765 railway servants were killed and 3,618 were injured in the year 1875, and we venture to assert that of this number a very large proportion were so killed or injured from causes within the power of the Companies to prevent. Yet the sufferers have no legal claim for compensation, nor are the Railway Companies held responsible by the law for, or compelled to remove the causes of such accidents. We feel convinced that until a due responsibility for the safety of the servants be placed on the Railway Companies, by making' them liable for the loss occasioned to their servants by preventible accidents, there "will be little diminution in the number of railway servants yearly killed or injured. We, therefore, beg that the Commission will recommend to Parliament such an alteration in the law relating to the liability of employers for injuries to their servants as will make Railway Companies justly responsible to their servants. I am very sorry, Sir, to be obliged to address the House at this length upon this question; but it is one of very great interest and of very great importance to the real welfare of the country. Therefore, I will venture to give the House two extracts—two only, and they are not very long ones—from the evidence of the railway servants who were examined before the Commissioners. The evidence of James Bridgeman is to be found at page 67 of the Royal Commission. Bridgeman was an engine-driver on the Rhymney line, and I give this extract in order to show what the railway servants say with respect to the danger to themselves occasioned by excessive labour. James Bridgeman, an engine-driver on the Rhymney line, said— I have been four years in the employment of the Company; on day duty a fair average of our ordinary hours of labour is from 13 to 17 or 18 hours, and at night 14 hours. The longest time I have worked in one week was 109 hours: that was in six days. Almost as bad as the case of a Member of Parliament. I did no work on Sunday. That was not an exceptional case. In winter it is a continual thing, because there are so many delays, and we have such inclines to work from, snow, and other things, which block us up. We say to the boys who come to call us to go out on duty—'We shall not go out to-day,' and they say we must go out, and if we refuse we stand the chance of being discharged. I have worked on an average 17 hours a-day; my wife and my wife's sister have been one on each side of me, holding mo up and shaking me, and trying to get me to eat my supper, and perhaps I have not been two hours in bed. Sometimes I have been less than an hour in bed when the boy has come to call me up again. In the winter time it is dark when we start in the morning, and we have the same work to do as we have when we start in the summer at daylight, and the same miles to run. I have fallen to sleep when going along the road. We have sometimes to stand for 20 hours. Well, Sir, I think this gives us a graphic picture of what may be understood by overwork, and I think it is not a difficult matter to understand now how danger may be incurred to the public generally when it is possible to call on a man to do that amount of work. The next case is, perhaps, even a more painful one; it is the case of Frederick Harcombe. Frederick Harcombe said— I am goods guard on the Taff Vale Hail way. I have to take on traffic at different sidings, and leave it at various places according to invoices. Our hours vary to a great extent; sometimes we have to work 20 hours at a stretch. I shall take the work of last week, which would be a favourable week as regards finishing work early. On Monday, the 23rd August, I was on duty at 3.25 in the morning and left off at 8.10 in the evening; Tuesday, 6.30 a.m. to 3.50 p.m.; Wednesday, 4.40 a.m. to 1.30 the following morning; Thursday, 12.30 p.m. to 2.15 a.m.; Friday, no work; Saturday 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. The last day's work was a bit easier than general. It has been sometimes 11 or 12 o'clock when I have arrived at the docks. I have a deal of active work at the stations and sidings; the shunting, coupling, and uncoupling at stations I do all myself, as the brakesman as a regular duty has to go back 800 yards to stop a following train. The week I have given is a fair sample of ordinary work; another might be a little heavier. In working these long hours, 16,18, or 20 hours, one has a difficulty in keeping awake, nor should I be able if I had not such responsible duties to perform. We have formed deputations on different occasions to our superiors to tell them our duties could be so arranged that our hours of work would be more regular day by day; I told Mr. Fisher that I had been at work excessively long hours, and that I required a rest. Our general proposition is that we ought not to work more than 10 or 12 hours a-day. On that single trip to Merthyr on Thursday I made 18 hours and some odd minutes. If it could be so arranged that we should only go a single trip a-day these long hours would be avoided. It is not fair to make us work 18 hours one day and 6 or 8 hours the next, nor getting rest for one day to work 20 hours the next. I could refer to cases when the work was much heavier than I have stated, I have worked from the time I went on duty till the time I went off, without a break, 23 hours and 40 minutes. The Company should have more men, and not overwork the men they have. I have seen many young men come and stop a few days and then go away as if they had enough of it. I do not think you can mention a line in the United Kingdom where there are more accidents to the men employed than on ours, especially in shunting, there being such a lot of work. There is a rule which prohibits us from getting on a train while it is in motion in shunting, but I have been told by our traffic superintendent that the rules are only a matter of form. There is a rule that if a servant meets with an accident through disobedience of the Company's rules he shall not be entitled to receive any support from the accident fund, but I never knew any objection raised where the accident happened through fly-shunting. The particular reason why I call attention to this case is that Frederick Har- combe, who gave this evidence before the Royal Commission, was discharged by the Company in whose service he was; and, I believe, although he tried some other five Railway Companies, he found it impossible to obtain employment in his profession.

SIR EDWARD WATKIN

I rise to Order. Will the hon. Gentleman give his authority for making that last statement?

MR. RAIKES

I can only say that it was so stated by one of the witnesses before the Royal Commission, and I shall be happy to furnish the hon. Member with my authority when I have an opportunity of referring to it. This may, perhaps, account for the fact that there were not a greater number of witnesses of this class examined before this particular Commission. But I do not wish even the hon. Member for Hythe to understand that I am condemning the Railway Companies for not fixing regular hours, as this witness thinks they should. Every man must be called on at times to work extra hours. But, at the same time, the public have a fair right to ask the Railway Companies to take special care not to work men, as far as they can help it, beyond the power of human endurance, and render them liable to occasional accidents, and cause death to the public or injury to themselves thereby. Of course, we know that a railway servant's life is one of very great danger, and must remain one of very great danger in spite of anything which we can do, from circumstances over which the Companies can have no control. Take the case of John Chiddy, which was brought before the House some years ago. John Chiddy was a platelayer on the Bristol and Exeter line, and while at his work he saw a piece of rock had fallen across the line and a train approaching. The train would inevitably have been upset, but he gallantly rushed to the spot, and succeeded in removing the obstruction and in saving the train, although in doing so he sacrificed his own life. No one can say that the occurrence was the fault of the Company, and I have no doubt that there are many cases in which railway servants have been prepared to make great exertions in the interests of their employers without any hope of compensation or reward. There is another case which I may mention, the case of a man well known in the city in which I have lived for a great part of my life. When I was a boy there was a serious accident at the Dee Bridge in Chester. One half of the bridge came down with the train in 1846 or 1847. The driver of the train escaped with one van. He flew along the line to the station about a mile off, having given information there, he reversed the engine and crossed the river on the other half of the broken bridge in order to give the alarm on the other side. Deeds of this nature are as heroic as anything that can occur in history. But no one will say that if this man had lost his life the Railway Company would have been in any sense responsible. We hear much of recklessness and carelessness on the part of railway servants by which they frequently lose their lives. But in many instances the disposition thus characterized is very nearly akin to the very noblest qualities which dignify human nature. I have now to ask the House to bear in mind the Reports of two previous important authorities who have considered this question. There was a Royal Commission appointed in 1865 to consider the question of Railway Accidents, and a Committee of this House sat in 1870 to consider the same question. Both inquiries contributed in an important degree to the information of the public, but both differed from the Royal Commission of 1877 in affirming the very important principle of a maximum of liability, which, in their opinion, ought to be incurred by the Railway Companies. It always appeared to me—I do not want to discuss the question at length—that Railway Companies are exceedingly hardly dealt with in the matter of unlimited damages under Lord Campbell's Act. I certainly cannot see the justice of the principle as it now operates. Take the case of two men called to the Bar. They might both be men of the highest character and the highest talent. Both are travelling in the same train. They might both be Members of this House going down into the country by the Great Western Railway to address their constituents at a General Election. One of these men might have devoted his great abilities to the service of mankind in particular as an advocate, the other might have devoted his abilities to the service of mankind in general as a pamphleteer or publicist. These two men travel in the same train and sit side by side in the same carriage. Both in the same calamity might be killed, and the Railway Company might have to pay to the representatives of the one who was earning a professional income of £10,000 a-year a sum of £100,000, while the representatives of the other man, although he was of equal ability, would not get a shilling. Again, in case one of these men happened to be a bachelor, the Railway Company might kill him without being called upon to pay anything in the shape of damages; whereas if the other man happened to be a married man, his family would recover whatever a jury might be pleased to assess. I mention this to show the great inequality and injustice of the law in imposing almost unlimited liability upon the Railway Companies so far as passengei'3 are concerned. Well Sir, the Royal Commission of 1865, and the Committee of 1870, recommended that there should be a maximum of liability for injury done or life lost in the case of passengers, and I find that the hon. Member for Hastings, in the Bill which he introduced last year, adopted that principle with regard to railway servants, fixing the limit at the sum of £200. There is another basis on which we are entitled to go, and that is the case of the workmen's trains. The law has sanctioned the principle of fixing in regard to workmen's trains a maximum of liability, and I think it is fixed in most cases at £100. The hon. Member for Hythe will correct me if I am stating the matter in any way inaccurately; but I think that the workmen's trains are run at a maximum liability of £100 in case of an accident. [Sir EDWARD WATKIN: On the Metropolitan.] So that the principle of a maximum liability has been affirmed by Parliament. There are three ways suggested for dealing with the question. There is the simplest and easiest, which is to leave it alone. The second is to adopt the principle laid down by the Royal Commission, and not merely to adopt the principle, but to put it in practice by the Bills of Lord De La Warr and the hon. Member for Hastings; but the danger of that is the danger inseparable from excessive litigation and the injury necessarily caused to the recognized principle of common employment in other industries, which must be produced if one particular class of public servants is entitled to go into a Court of Law to obtain redress when other classes of servants are not equally entitled. I quite see the difficulty in both the first and the second of these courses. But then there is a third mode, and that is the mode which the hon. Member for Hythe calls attention in the second and perhaps the more valuable part of his Amendment—and that is the mode of insuring. Now, there are a great many Railway Companies who, although hon. Members may not know it, are very much concerned in introducing into their Acts most excellent clauses for the establishment of a superannuation and accident fund. One of these clauses, which I have in my hand, says that the directors of the Company may, if they think fit, establish and maintain an accident and life insurance fund, payable by temporary or periodical allowance in a gross sum to such of the Company's servants and workmen as may be temporarily or permanently disabled by accident. I think we have here the germ of much useful legislation; but it does not in my opinion go far enough, and it is permissive. It does not say that the Company shall, but that the Company may establish this insurance fund for accidents resulting in injury or death. In establishing these funds, if they are to be in any sense successful they must be secured by the cordial co-operation of the men, and a great number of the men dislike the clause, because they are already insured in other ways. They do not desire to avail themselves of the benefit of such a clause, because it would interfere with the arrangements they have made for their own security and would involve them in a double not like these clauses, and the Companies payment. That being so, the men do cannot enforce them. They are valuable, however, as indicating a wish to go forward in a right direction. What I desire to put to the House on this occasion is this—it appears to me that the principle on which the Royal Commissioners would act and upon which the hon. Member for Hastings has proposed to act is a sound one. In the case of Companies so peculiarly constituted and possessing such peculiar privileges as Railway Companies, special legislation is not only permissible, but even desirable. I think that in view of the public safety, it is incumbent on Parliament to take such steps for the protection of railway servants as may give greater security to the travelling public. I certainly do think that, seeing the exceptional nature of the dangers they incur and the services they perform, railway servants possess a claim for the consideration of the Government and of this House such as cannot in an equal degree be advanced on behalf of any other class. That being so, I would ask this House, bearing in mind the fact that this system of insurance has already in many cases been adopted, bearing in mind the high authority which has sanctioned the principle of the maximum of liability, bearing in mind that that maximum liability is already the established rule in the case of passengers by workmen's trains where the particular sum to be paid is assessed not by a jury, but by an arbitrator appointed by the Board of Trade, bearing in mind all these facts, it seems to me that a case is fairly made out for establishing a system by which railway servants, in cases where they are not shown to have contributed to loss of life or injury to limb by their own act—or their representatives, in fatal cases—should be entitled to receive from the Company a certain sum to be fixed at a maximum by Parliament, and to be assessed in cases of injury by a competent arbitrator in such a way as is provided in the case of workmen's trains, and that in cases of injury they should he able to obtain this compensation from the Company where it has been established that they have not themselves conduced to their own injury. But that is not all. From the Returns presented by the Board of Trade, and submitted to the Royal Commissioners, I find that the number of railway servants killed in the six years preceding 1878 were, in 1872, 644 killed, and 1,398 injured; 1873, 773 killed, and 1,171 injured; 1875, 765 killed, and an appalling total of 3,618 injured; 1876, 673 killed, and 2,600 injured; and 1877, 642 killed, and 2,163 injured. I confess that that Return shows that during the last two years there was a considerable decrease both in death and injury, owing probably to the laudable efforts made by the Railway Companies to prevent accident, and the excellent result of the appointment of the Royal Commissioners. Well, Sir, if we take the case of the year 1875, which is the only year I have here where the amounts are broken up, I find that out of 765 persons who were killed, the Railway Companies returned themselves as responsible for only 39, the rest being attributed to causes within the control of the sufferers; and 3,618 injured, of whom they returned only 514 as having been injured from causes beyond the control of the persons injured. Although I venture to call in question the perfect accuracy of these figures, disclaiming at the same time any disposition to impute a desire on the part of the Railway Companies to give inaccurate Returns, I may at all events say that the figures of the Companies are good against themselves; and if they say that out of this enormous number of killed and injured there were only 39 for whom they could be held at all responsible where death resulted, and only 514 out of 3,618 cases of injury, then I think we may fairly arrive at what would be the net result, supposing such a system of enforced insurance existed as that which I venture to propose. Supposing you fix the maximum liability for the killing of a railway servant at £200, and suppose you take the number of cases in the course of a year at even a higher figure than that which is set forth in this Return—suppose you say 50 instead of 39, it would cost the Companies £10,000 a-year. Taking 500 as the average number of railway servants injured by causes beyond their own control and striking a rough balance, you may say they would recover half the amount of the maximum or £100 a-piece, which is, I take it, a good deal above what the actual amount would be—suppose that a liability of £100 was incurred in the case of each of the 500 servants, you would have an annual responsibility of £50,000 under that head. If you add that £50,000 to the £10,000 for which the Companies would be responsible on account of deaths, you will arrive at a total annual charge of £60,000, which would represent the direct liability of the Railway Companies in such cases. But I do not wish to stop here. I would stop here as far as the liability of the Railway Companies is concerned; but I do not desire to stop here as a means of encouraging thereby saving and care in the railway servants themselves, because I think if you made a system of this sort the centre of a group of clauses to be introduced into every Railway Bill, and if you said—"Where you kill or injure a man you shall pay a sum so fixed and ascertained," and if you surrounded the servants themselves with a legal machinery which would enable men to insure themselves against these railway accidents, by which they could provide against such a calamity as that which befel the poor man Chiddy, you would encourage the men in the greatest possible degree to take care of themselves. If you could establish such a system, by which, with-out an expensive source of proceeding, and without having recourse to hungry attorneys, you would provide a short and expeditious remedy in all cases of death and injury; if you use that as the centre of a system by which you encourage habits of thrift, economy, and providence, I think you would go a long way towards solving one of the most difficult problems with which we have to deal. Such is the nature of my proposal. I venture to offer these suggestions in all humility to the House. There are Gentlemen here whose knowledge of railway matters must always greatly exceed my own, and there are Gentlemen here who have given this subject great attention, not only from the directors' point of view, but from that of public duty. They may differ from me in opinion, but I hope they will be satisfied that I have not brought forward this question in any spirit of hostility to any commercial interest or undertaking. I have brought it forward, because I believe that a great public duty should be discharged by this House before the House ceases to sit; and I do sincerely trust that whether or not the House will adopt the proposal I venture to submit to it on this occasion, it will, at least, form the basis of an adequate consideration of what I believe to be one of our greatest social wants, and which I am certain must in every part of the House demand our warmest sympathy. I beg, Sir, now to move the Resolution which stands in my name on the Paper.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the exceptional character of the services performed and dangers incurred by Railway Servants in the discharge of their duty calls for the immediate and special attention of Her Majesty's Government; and that this House is of opinion that a change in the Law is required, by which, notwithstanding the legal doctrine of common employment, adequate com- pensation shall be secured to Railway Servants in all cases of injury to which they have not personally contributed."—(Mr. Raikes.)

SIR EDWARD WATKIN,

in moving, as an Amendment— That while it might, on the eve of a General Election, serve party purposes in some boroughs to single out Railway industry for exceptional legislation, such a course would be contrary to precedent and be unsupported by the facts relating to accidents attending mechanical and other industrial employments, and that the question of accidents arising in the conduct of all the industries of the Country, whether from personal carelessness, defective control, or other causes, and the consequent premature death of and injury to probably 100,000 persons annually, demands the grave attention of Her Majesty's Government, with a view to the adoption by Parliament of some general and adequate system of insurance, to the funds for which both the capitalist and the workman should contribute in just proportions, said, he had listened with very great attention to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Chester (Mr. Raikes), and certainly did not perceive that he either proved or attempted to prove the foundation of the proposition of this Resolution—namely, the exceptional and peculiar dangers and difficulties attending the working of railways. But if the working of railways was so exceptional and so dangerous, or whether it was so or not, the hon. Gentleman said all this called for the immediate attention of Her Majesty's Government. Now, if he remembered rightly, the Railway Accidents Commission reported in February, 1877. It was strange that the hon. Member's anxiety to deal with this which he called a great question should only have awakened itself in his breast on the eve of a General Election. He (Sir Edward Watkins) was not like the hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees. He was simply a member of the hard-working world. He was not a lawyer. The best years of his life, from the beginning of railways till now, had been spent in railway work. He thought if anyone would go among the bodies of railway working men he had to employ, it would be seen that he had neglected nothing which could in any way promote the good of the railway working man for whose sobriety, intelligence, and zeal, he had the highest respect. And with regard to injuries and death caused by the neglect of a man's fellow-servant in a common employment, he had never looked at the Act of Parliament, but merely considered what was just and right and had always given compensation to the injured man, or to his family. The Railway Commissioners recommended that a Company should be "liable for the negligence of those to whom it delegated its authority as a master," but they did not go further than that. They "did not propose that railway Companies should be responsible to their servants, for the negligence of those who were in fact, as well as in law, fellow servants." The Railway Accidents Commissioners also recommended that the time for bringing actions should be limited. The hon. Gentleman, however, went further, and answered his own argument by differing with their Report. He (Sir Edward Watkin) had endeavoured to ascertain from Her Majesty's Government whether they were in favour of a general system of insurance applied to all industries or not. He had failed to learn from the hon. Member for Chester whether he was in favour of such an insurance or not. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Macdonald) was of opinion that insurance in some cases inflicted very great difficulty, if not intolerable wrong. If he read the Amendment of the hon. Member for Stafford right we ought never to insure our property, for if we did we should be tempted to burn the property down; we ought never to insure lives, because lives would then be taken upon the shortest possible notice; and we ought not to insure ships, for no doubt the tendency of rotten ships was to go to the bottom. The hon. Member for Chester had failed in endeavouring to show that railway shareholders should be specially singled out for the infliction of a new and exceptional liability. The hon. Member, if he knew anything of industrial works, must know there were far more dangerous employments than railway employment. Many also where the human system was attacked by noxious elements. But, having rather a weak case, he tried to buttress it up by saying that railways were enormous monopolies. What that proposition had to do with the question he (Sir Edward Watkin) could not comprehend. He knew very well that there were only two or three towns where there were not two or more competing railways. There was no railway which was not competed with by roads, canals, and tramways. These railways, said the hon. Member, were a special, the only special creation of Parliament. He began to think he was dreaming when the hon. Member said that. What were the canals, the great enterprizes of the last century, but the creation of Parliament? What were the great roads of the country, the tramways or the ordinary roads, but the creation of Parliament? In fact, every enterprize which demanded the compulsory expropriation of private rights and private property was of necessity the creation of Parliament. Coming back to the question of public safety, he found that in the course of the year 277 persons were killed by accident in the streets of London, being 10 times as many as the whole number of railway passengers who were killed on all the railways in the Kingdom by causes beyond their own control. What the hon. Member desired to do was to inflict a tax of £60,000 per annum upon railway proprietors for the support of the families of those railway employés who were killed through the negligence of their fellow-servants. He maintained that this matter of the deaths by accident of railway employés was merely the fringe of the real question, which should include all casualties and fatalities necessarily arising out of our vast industries. While the proposal of the hon. Member would not affect the cases of one in 100 who were killed in the course of their work in carrying on those industries, his own proposal would deal with them all. The railway proprietors of the Three Kingdoms employed directly and indirectly about 400,000 persons. With reference to the two cases quoted by the hon. Member which occurred on railways in South Wales, he should like to ask the hon. Member whether those were fair samples of the evidence given before the Commission? The memorials alluded to by the hon. Member, also, as he must have known, were presented by a small section of the railway employés only. It must be remembered that it was to the interest of the railway employer to treat his servants well. A railway could not stop. It must go on in all weather and in all circumstances. In other enterprizes a strike could endure; on our railways it could not be thought of; and he considered that our railway servants were not only among the best paid, but amongst the most kindly considered of the working classes. Turning to the larger subject, if the hon. Member would examine the Report of the Registrar General of Births and Deaths, he would find that of the 18,500 persons who met with violent deaths every year, only some 1,283 were killed in connection with railways in any way, whether as passengers, or as being employed in the workshops, or in any and every other way. It was no less strange than true that correcting the figures by population, this ghastly total presented the same volume year after year. Accident leading to '' violent death" seemed to be an all but constant quantity, an element, therefore, which must be taken into account always in calculating the hopes and chances of life. And it was probable that for one person who died by accident, 20 were, more or less injured. Thus the appalling figure of 400,000 would represent the annual accident liability of this great industrial country. Against these figures he would place the 6,445 persons who died from what the Registrar called "mechanical injuries" other than those received in connection with railways and mines; also the 2,789 who died from "chemical injuries; also the 5,708 who died from "asphyxia; and the 1,974 who died from "falls." They had heard a good deal with regard to the danger of railway travelling; but it was a remarkable circumstance that the deaths resulting from horse conveyance for the year amounted to 1,522, while 1,043 persons were killed by what the Registrar classed as "fractures," apart from death by fracture on railways and mines. Although 61 persons were killed by agricultural machinery, the hon. Member had not brought forward any proposal for the protection of such persons. The figures showed that railway travelling was the safest mode of conveyance, and that railway servants enjoyed a greater immunity from accidents than many other employés. He trusted that the House would be of opinion that he had established a fair case against the Motion of the hon. Member. The groundwork of his whole proposition had been disproved. It appeared to him that the great value of insurance was—first, that it made the risk run a definite risk; secondly, that it was perfectly fair; and, thirdly, that by its being universal, it would give satisfaction to all. A high authority—Lord Shand, an eminent Scotch Judge—had expressed an opinion on this subject which conclusively proved that the Employers' Liability Bill was nothing more nor less than an attempt, whether for political or humanitarian purposes, to deal with a very small part of a very great question. Lord Shand said that the great majority of accidents that occurred were what were popularly called unavoidable accidents, or accidents which were naturally incident to the employment, and which were often caused by the negligence of the unhappy sufferer, who was, however, not the less entitled to sympathy on that account. None of the legislative measures proposed, he said, would in the least degree meet this, which he believed to be the largest class of accidents. There appeared to be one remedy which, in Lord Shand's opinion, was the only one which could be resorted to, and that was a system of insurance to be contributed to by both employers and workmen to guard against the contingencies of perilous employments. These were words of wisdom, which he would recommend to the consideration of the House. But the House would not have forgotten the decisive letters which were given to the public through the Press, on the whole subject, by one of our greatest lawyers, the Lord Justice Bram-well. The hon. Member for Chester scarcely did justice to the great class of employers in this country. The Railway Companies as a rule—he admitted that there were exceptions—the great colliery owners as a rule, the great manufacturers of metals as a rule adopted a system of insurance, to which they and their employés contributed, to provide for times of sickness and for funerals and accidents; and one of the great ironworks, the "Staveley," had received and distributed, since 1867, a total sum for insurance amounting to no less than £59,918. It was unjust to the great employers of labour to say that they neglected the just rights, or the wants, and sufferings of their people, and if one single interest, and that a defenceless body, was selected on the eve of a General Election for attack, cause should be shown why it should be so treated. Did the Government sympathize with that attack? He wished the hon. Member for Chester would have treated them to the political economy of the question. He would, however, venture to remind the House of the difference between a definite and an indefinite risk. The one was insurable, and therefore entered into the cost and the price of the thing done or produced. Thus the consumer paid it. But the other was uninsurable, and therefore was a tax upon capital. True, the hon. Member for Chester proposed to limit the compensation in case of death to £200. He (Sir Edward Watkin) did not know whether that would either satisfy the hon. Member for Stafford, or the railway servants at Chester. Why should not Her Majesty's Government aid those who had tried their hand at aiding themselves, who by agreement with their employers had established those insurance funds for a day of distress? If they frankly accepted the principle of insurance as laid down in his Amendment, then he admitted they would have a very good thing to go to the country with. In no other way, in his opinion, could they deal adequately with the question. The hon. Member had hinted rather than said something about great monopolies and great corporations. He would, however, be surprised to hear that there was a railway employé for every shareholder, and that the ordinary dividend of the ordinary stockholder was little more than the average sum paid to principal mechanics and signalmen on railways. He believed that a system of insurance, such as he had spoken of, would willingly be joined in by railway employés, and he commended the system to the consideration of Her Majesty's Government. There was no greater question of the day to be solved. If they took it in hand they would, he believed, find the employers of labour ready to help them in establishing a just and wise system, which would redound to their credit and be a great national benefit. He begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

MR. KNOWLES

seconded the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "while it might, on the eve of a General Election, serve party purposes in such boroughs to single out Railway industry for exceptional legislation, such a course would be contrary to precedent and he unsupported by the facts relating to accidents attending mechanical and other industrial employments, and that the question of accidents arising in the conduct of all the industries of the Country, whether from personal carelessness, defective control, or other causes, and the constant premature death of and injury to probably 100,000 persons annually, demands the grave attention of Her Majesty's Government, with a view to the adoption by Parliament of some general and adequate system of insurance, to the funds for which both the capitalist and the workman should contribute in just proportions,"—(Sir Edward Watkin,) —instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. HALL,

in supporting the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Chester (Mr. Raikes), said, he did so, not because he believed the Railway Companies to be defenceless bodies, but because he believed this to be a very important branch of a very difficult subject, and one which ought to be dealt with by Her Majesty's Government. Whether the interesting plan sketched out by his hon. Friend was likely to commend itself to the House he could not say; but he thought it was one which offered a chance of showing the wisest way to go, and one which would be most acceptable to railway employés themselves. He had never heard that railway servants desired more than to be relieved from the disability of being unable to claim compensation for injury received in the course of the service. The law had been so strained of late years that it was now held that a railway servant was not only responsible for his own acts, but was unable to obtain compensation for any act of a fellow-servant, whereby he sustained injury, provided the act was the result of negligence and was not wilfully committed. That was the injustice which was complained of. The Courts of Scotland had never interpreted the law so strictly against the workmen as the Courts in England; but in the year 1856 the House of Lords ruled that the same principle applied to both countries. The hon. Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin) asked why were the railway servants singled out—why were they not to deal with the whole question? The hon. Member for Hythe was pained that nothing was to be done for agricultural labourers and others. As to the interest which the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Macdonald) looked after, it was doubtful whether the mining industry would exist at all if the doctrine of common employ- ment were abolished. Yet the abolition of the doctrine of common employment would throw upon the shareholders the whole consequences of the men's carelessness. He was far from saying that miners had no case; and he was not grudging them legislation on a just basis. But he wished to show that, in asking for too much, the miners ought not to be surprised if Parliament did not allow the claims of others, who did not ask for too much, to be prejudiced as a consequence of the action of the miners. He believed the railway servants would be perfectly content with the doctrine of Common employment, if it could be so narrowed as to exclude those whose actions they were unable to control, and the consequences of whoso actions it was out of their power to evade. He could not understand why a private employer should be liable to a servant, while the company went scot free. He could not understand on what principle of justice it was that, if a man worked for a private employer, and in carrying out his orders he met with an accident, he knew to whom he had to go for compensation; while on the other hand, if the same man worked for a Company and met with an accident he found his masters vanish, to re-appear in the humble garb of follow-workmen. This was a parody of justice, and he only wondered it had lasted so long. It was no answer to say that the Railway Companies subscribed to this fund and to that fund. No doubt, the railway directors were very generous, and, no doubt, there was wisdom in their generosity. But the law knew nothing of generosity. The law ought to see that when railway officials asked for only that which was just, they should receive it without delay.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

MR. D. DAVIES

said, it must be understood his sympathies were with the railway servants. He owed his position, to a great extent, to railway men, and he always took their part when he could. But, in legislating on this question, there would be danger of doing the railway servants injury. It was well known that some Railway Companies were very liberal; but if Companies had to pay compensation when they were found to be in fault, there would be so much litigation and expense that the Companies would not, in other cases, give so much compensation voluntarily as they did at present. A large number of men were injured and killed without it being either their own fault or that of the Company. Shunters slipped and were run over; platelayers stepped aside to avoid one train and were killed by another. If Companies were exposed to litigation in other cases, they would show less sympathy in these. It was hardly fair to quote the Taff Vale Company's line, as the hon. Member for Chester (Mr. Raikes) had done. It was one of the best worked lines in the country; it had a smaller percentage of accidents than other lines in proportion to the amount of traffic, and. in 45 years it had never killed a passenger, until the unfortunate accident at Ponty-prid a few months ago. If men worked long hours, it was but occasionally and in exceptional circumstances. A storm kept ships out of port; a calm brought in a number of steamers which required coaling with expedition. Men who had been idle were called on to make a prolonged effort, and they were glad enough to do it to make up for lost time; but, as a rule, the men did not work more than 10 or 12 hours at a stretch. He should like something to be done, but it must be in a direction different from that proposed. As the Report of the Commissioners was three years old, it was rather extraordinary that the hon. Member for Chester had not found an earlier opportunity of calling attention to it. There were 19 accidents for which a Company was not to blame, for one in which it was; and it would be unfortunate if the securing of compensation in one case risked the loss or diminution of it in the 19.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,

House adjourned at a quarter after Ten o'clock.