SECOND READING.

HC Deb 17 May 1888 vol 326 cc635-72

Order for Second Reading read.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.)

, in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that the Bill was a consolidating as well as an amending one. In the interests of the working classes it was desirable the law on this subject should be put into one Statute. He would not now debate questions of large principle which he regarded as settled. It seemed to him impossible, as some Members wished, to sweep away the doctrine of common employment which had grown up in English laws. It was fair to call on an employer to provide plant and machinery in good condition; but that he should be rendered liable for the casual negligence or wilful misconduct of a servant was a doctrine which could not be upheld. It was not proposed in the Bill to do away with the doctrine of common employment; but they did propose to correct what they might deem had been the undue extension of that doctrine in the Courts of Law. All lawyers, he thought, would agree that when an employer delegated his control and authority over his workmen to a manager, who was an alter ego of himself, and who superintended in his name, the manager could not, and ought not, to be treated as a fellow-servant with those over whom he ruled. If he were so treated a premium would be placed upon such delegation of authority. It was right, therefore, in his opinion, to exclude all such cases from this doctrine of common employment. There was another matter dealt with in the Bill of some novelty to which he must refer. There largely prevailed, especially in the building trades, a practice of the contractor giving out different parts of the work to sub-contractors. Those sub-contractors were frequently men of straw, whose responsibility and liability to workmen were extremely inadequate, and yet the principal employer escaped liability because there was no privity between him and the men employed by the sub-contractors, although the plant or materials supplied by him proved to be deficient, and consequently led to accidents. That seemed to be a hardship; and it was attempted to be remedied in the 2nd clause of the Bill. While the liability of the sub-contractor was kept alive, the principal contractor, for whom the work was really being done, was made also liable for accidents which happened owing to the patent defect in the plant used. The next point he desired to refer to was that with regard to the burning question whether workmen should be allowed to contract themselves out of the Act. There were three possible courses that might be adopted. In the first place, absolute liberty might be given to the workmen. The second alternative was absolutely to prohibit contracting out of the Act; and the third was to prohibit the sub modo—that was to say, unless something as good as, or better than, the provisions of the measure existed in the contract of employment. The first course was one that naturally commended itself to some men of masculine mind, who thought it unwise to treat the working men of this country, who were its mainstay, like women and children, lunatics and sailors—these were all classes which the law, sometimes wisely, sometimes somewhat oddly, treated as incompetent to protect themselves. But among the friends of the working men who best knew their wishes there was a strong feeling that working men were often subjected to such pressure and coercion and influence on the part of their employers that the men were not really free agents. Absolute prohibition was condemned by the Committee which sat about the year 1876, before the Act of 1880 was passed; but the Committee which sat last year was about equally divided on the subject; so that the opinions in favour of prohibition had made progress. By the casting vote of the Chairman, the Report in favour of prohibition sub modo was adopted, which had been followed in the drafting of this Bill. The result of absolute prohibition would be that since the masters could not be prevented from insuring, the injured workmen would on all occasions have to meet, as antagonists, Insurance Companies, whose whole energies would be devoted to fighting every claim for compensation; there would thus be a great increase of litigation, and great hardship in many deserving cases. Moreover, absolute prohibition would put an end to a number of arrangements existing at this moment, and which were, in his judgment, much more beneficial to the men than any chance of compensation they could obtain under an Act of Parliament. Two, at least, of the great Railway Companies—namely, the London and North-Western and the London, Brighton, and South Coast, had established between themselves and their men arrangements for mutual assurance, which seemed to him to be of the most beneficial and salutary kind. Of the 53,000 employés of the first-named Company only 25 had refused to enter into this arrangement, and of the 9,000 or 10,000 workmen employed by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Company all except two had entered into a similar arrangement. Of the men employed in the collieries it was given in evidence before the Committee that 83,000 men in England had entered into such arrangement, while in North Wales 10,500 had done so. Contemporaneously with that the number of accidents had greatly diminished, especially in the latter case, so that that fact showed that the arrangement had not tended to carelessness, or want of security for the workmen themselves. This system appeared to be one of great advantage to the men, and it was, therefore, the purpose of the Bill to encourage such arrangements. The scheme they contemplated in the 3rd section of the Bill allowed the employer and the workmen, if they agreed, to contract themselves out of the Act, provided always that an adequate consideration was given by the employer for such contract. That adequate consideration was defined by the Bill to be this—some system of insurance against accidents of all kinds, and that covered not only the limited class for which the employer was liable under the present Bill, but accidents of all kinds such as were inevitable, or even the result of the injured man's own negligence. The field that was covered by the sort of insurance which they allowed as an alternative to liability under the Bill was a very much wider field than was covered by the Bill itself. The Bill required that the employer should make a contribution to the insurance fund in accordance with the average proportion of accidents for which a master was liable under the circumstances of that particular trade to the total number of accidents of all kinds that occurred. Thus, if in a particular trade it was calculated that a master was, on an average, liable for a third of the accidents that occurred he would have to contribute one-third to the insurance fund. It was also provided that the employer should become a guarantor of the solvency of the insurance fund. One rock upon which schemes of assurance were extremely likely to split was that the actuarial calculations might not be accurately made, and the fund contributions might not be adequate to meet the demands made upon them. It was, therefore, necessary to throw upon the employer the duty of guaranteeing the soundness of the scheme. This at first sight might seem a little hard, but workmen could not be expected to judge whether the scheme was a sound one, and therefore the responsibility must be thrown on employers. It seemed to the Government extremely desirable, if possible, to avoid litigation, which could benefit nobody but the hedge attorney, who was the chief person interested in legal proceedings of the kind. It was, therefore, important to ascertain beforehand that agreements entered into between employers and workmen were fair. The Bill provided that one of the Departaments of the Government should examine and certify that any contract made, or proposed to be made, between employer and workman was a contract under which the latter obtained ade- quate consideration for renouncing the advantages he would have under the Act. The Board of Trade would certify as to all schemes, except those in regard to coal mines and factories, which would come under the control of the Home Office. Practically those clauses were an endeavour to carry out the recommendations of the last Committee on this subject. He might here state that since 1881, when the Employers' Liability Act passed, the total number of cases set down for hearing under it amounted to 1,800; of these, there was a verdict for the plaintiff only in 419 cases, while there were settled between the parties 265 cases, in which he assumed the plaintiff got some benefit at least, making a total of 684 cases of successful litigation out of 1,800, or only 38 per cent. Thus, in 62 per cent of the cases set down for hearing, the workman failed in the object and purpose of his litigation, and the unhappy employer was subjected to the burden of paying his own costs and probably the costs on the other side. The hope of the Government was that these clauses would lead to some system of general insurance, and that the several trades in various parts of the country might federate with that object. With regard to the plans of general compulsory insurance, such as was embodied in legislation in Germany in 1884 and in Austria in 1887, their experience was too recent and too slight to enable them to come to anything like a sound judgment; and, besides, the details of those Continental measures would, in his opinion, be absolutely intolerable in a country of freedom like this, involving, as they did, a very serious amount of interference with trade, which was necessary and inevitable under the systems. He believed that by the machinery of this clause it would be to the mutual interest of employers and employed to institute a general scheme of insurance, and that it would do more to smooth the asperities of the labour question than almost any other system that could be introduced. He believed, too, there were sufficient data for calculating risks and rates of premium, so as to make a scheme solvent and safe. The example of the London and North-Western Company showed that in a great undertaking like that there were the materials for completing a scheme safely and successfully within the limits of the undertaking itself; and his view was that by grouping collieries by districts, and the textile industries and the building trades in various parts, and getting them to combine, schemes of mutual insurance might be carried out in a solvent and practicable manner for the benefit of the workman. A novel feature in the Bill was the extension of its benefits to seamen. The recommendations of the Committee on this subject, in his opinion, were wise and went far enough. Nobody could deny the difference between the employer of labour at sea and the employer on land, for the simple reason that the former when once his ship was at sea lost all control over his delegates and agents; and, therefore, to make him responsible for their negligence or error of judgment when the ship had left harbour and was on the high seas would be an unjust extension of the principle of employers' liability. Moreover, shipowners were already under a special code of regulations, and were not free to employ whom they liked as engineers, seamen, captains, and mates. Accordingly, this Bill did not go further than the Select Committee's Report, and made the shipowner only liable for accidents occurring to his employés while the vessel was in a British port, where his position resembled that of employers on land. When once the ship had left the port his responsibility was limited to this—that she must be properly equipped with everything necessary for the protection and safety of the men before she starts. Here, again, with the object of preventing litigation, the Government had introduced a subsection which had been the subject of some criticism, enabling the Board of Trade to say in advance what things a ship of any particular class ought to have in order to its proper equipment in relation to the safety of the seamen, and it was suggested that these regulations should be annexed to the agreement of the sailor, so that he should have notice of what the ship ought to contain in order to satisfy the law. Another change introduced was the clause consolidating the Common Law action with the statutory action, so obviating a frequent cause of annoyance and suffering under the present law, and, at the same time, it was proposed to extend the jurisdiction of the County Courts in order to enable them to deal with Com- mon Law claims as well as the statutory amount which exceeded the present jurisdiction of the County Courts. There were many other points to which he should like to advert, but he refrained from doing so with the view of giving as much time as possible for discussion. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Secretary Matthews).

MR. BROADHURST (Nottingham, W.)

said, that before he commenced his remarks on the Bill, he must again take the opportunity of protesting against being "cornered" in this matter—against being so compressed and cabined in a debate on so important a Bill. He feared he could not interpret the situation in the same way as the right hon. Gentleman opposite had interpreted it. After taking a very active part officially on behalf of the trades of the country for 20 years, it was very difficult for him to compress his remarks into so short a period as was now allowed. However, he would contribute his share towards, if possible, closing the debate before 12 o'clock, if his hon. Friends would acquiesce in such an agreement. [An hon. MEMBER: Certainly not.] At any rate, he would contribute his share in that direction. There were three particular points in connection with the question of employers' liability, raised in the present Bill, upon which he wished to speak, and they were the question of common employment, the question of insurance out of the Act, and the further question of limitation of compensation. Now, with regard to the question of common employment, the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had argued it at very considerable length, and he had quoted the conclusions arrived at by the Committee of 1876–7 so far as their Report was concerned, though the right hon. Gentleman had not given them any quotation from the evidence of the most important witness examined by that Committee. Now, with regard to the question of common employment, there was only one basis upon which the question could ever be satisfactorily settled, and that was on the basis of the abolition of common employment. Common employment was nothing but a subterfuge for shielding employers from their natural liability. Employers were liable to all others persons except to the men engaged in their employment, for injury caused by any person engaged in their employment, and if that were so, upon what basis of logic, upon what sense of justice could an employer be excused from being equally liable to compensate a person in his employ for injuries received whilst engaged on his work, no matter by whom the injury might be done? He appealed to the Home Secretary to listen to him for a moment. He was not going to argue this subject at length here, but he should have a great deal to say on the matter when the Bill got into Committee, and his speech to-night would not deprive him of a full opportunity of discussing the question at a later stage. Let him give one instance, and that was as good as a hundred instances that were occurring every day in the building and some other trades. The case was this. On the extension of the Charing Cross Railway Bridge now in process of construction, two or three months ago, a mason was at work. He was injured through the falling of some bags of sand, receiving a great weight from a great height on to his right shoulder, which so injured his arm and his wrist that he would be for ever prevented from earning his living at his trade. Now that was a most serious accident to happen to any man who had nothing but his health and strength and bodily skill to depend on for the maintenance of himself and his family. Well, this accident occurred through the man in charge of the bags of sand, whose business it was to lower them from a high platform to a lower platform, improperly slinging the bags, as the pin was not hammered tight on the top of the bags, and so, when they were slung off the platform, they toppled and fell on the man. The man was a ruined man, although only 30 years of age. He and his family (for he had a family) were a charge on the ratepayers or on the benevolence of his friends, and yet the Government said that because that accident occurred through the incapacity or negligence, or whatever they liked to term it, of a man in common employment, there was to be no claim for compensation. A more monstrous piece of injustice to a workman could scarcely he conceived. This man had no more control or influence over or knowledge of the man who slung the bags of sand improperly than if he had been a workman in any other part of England or in some other part of the world. He could not see and could have no means of protecting himself against the want of skill or care on the part of the man above him. Now he (Mr. Broadhurst) asked the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary whether he thought that the law should remain in the condition whereby these accidents could occur constantly, and a workman and his family have no recompense whatever against the employer? He (Mr. Broadhurst) should, at a later stage, move such Amendments as would relieve the Bill of that anomaly, of that great injustice, and also relieve the Bill from much of its confused language. He did not say this was the fault of the draughtsman, but the confused language seemed to him to be introduced in order not to do an injustice to the workman, and at the same time to protect the employer from such liability as be would have to incur in the case of any other person except a workman in his employment. That was a subject they would have to hear a great deal of in Committee, and notwithstanding the Report of the inquiry which the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had quoted with very considerable satisfaction, and with his eyes towards the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh), whom he (Mr. Broadhurst) understood was likely to give the right hon. Gentleman valuable assistance on this matter. ["No, no!"] Oh, the hon. Member did not propose to give assistance on this point, and he (Mr. Broadhurst) begged the hon. Member's pardon. It was upon another subject, but that other subject was not altogether unconnected with the point he was now referring to. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Matthews) had been smiling, and he (Mr. Broadhurst) thought his reply to him would be this, that in the case of the man injured at the Bridge under this Bill, he would be provided for and protected by the system of insurance proposed. To that system the labour party entirely objected from beginning to end, and it was upon that point he believed that the right hon. Gentleman was relying upon the hon. Member for Northampton for considerable steam power in pulling the Government through this very difficult task. With regard to this point, especially if the House would permit him, he should like to read something very shortly, only one or two words from the Report of the Select Committee of 1876–7. Although he was not a Member of the House at the time that Report was presented, it was at the instance of the body of which he (Mr. Broadhurst) was then, and still continued to be, the Secretary, that that Select Committee was appointed. He had attended every one of the sittings of the Committee from the beginning to the end, and had taken some part in arranging for the witnesses, and so on. Well, the most distinguished witness that was examined by that Committee was Mr. Justice Brett, and he thought the whole House would agree that a more brilliant Judge and a more fair-minded man and a more certain man on points of law was scarcely known in the judicial system. He (Mr. Broadhurst) personally did not regard Mr. Justice Brett with any great degree of affection or personal regard, for Mr. Justice Brett had felt it to be his duty to inflict upon a man whom he knew a most cruel sentence in connection with the strike in the Metropolis. Well, Mr. Justice Brett's whole evidence from beginning to end was centred in the question of common employment, and his Lordship argued the matter with every witness. A Member of the Committee at that time was Mr. Ripley, then representing Bradford in this House—a large employer and a man of large experience, but one who could not agree with this proposal. Mr. Ripley asked this question, whether he, Mr. Justice Brett, considered that it would be better that a master should not be liable for injury done to a servant in his employ. The learned Judge, in reply, said he disagreed with the Common Law on compensation. He did not think an employer should be liable for the act of his servant; but, he said, so long as he was liable in any one case, there was no reason or justice why he should not be liable in the case of accidents through the negligence of one servant causing injury to another servant. The learned Judge said— Will you forgive me for stating that I must say again if you alter the old law with regard to everybody, than you should say that nobody ought to be liable fur anything hit his own negligence or want of care or skill, but so long as you maintain the general law, I think that general law ought to be applicable in regard to the liability of a master for injury to a servant. Evidence of that kind, replies of that nature, were to be found in every column of the eight or 10 pages of the evidence given by that very great and distinguished man. It would be difficult for the opponents of this proposal to abolish common employment to produce any two, or indeed any half-dozen, witnesses who could possibly have greater weight on this subject than the one witness which he (Mr. Broadhurst) had quoted from this Parliamentary document. And now, with regard to the question of insurance. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary boasted—and very properly boasted—that the thing was very good so far as it went—that it had prevented contracting out of the Act. He (Mr. Broadhurst) understood that to be the correct interpretation of the Bill. But, at the same time that the right hon. Gentleman had made contracting out of the Act illegal, he had made insuring out of the Act much more easy, and it was insuring out of the Act which the labour party objected to, as much as they objected to the retention of this doctrine of common employment. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to a great Corporation called the London and North-Western Railway Company. Well, the London and North-Western Railway Company was a Corporation as paramount of the Civil Service of the State. Surely, the right hon. Gentleman was not going to compare that great body, that great Railway Company, at all with the conditions surrounding ordinary and every-day employment. It was no argument to apply the results of the experience of that Company to the whole labour of the United Kingdom. It did not apply in the building trade. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary said he hoped to be able to group mines and the building trade. [Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.): And factories.] Yes, and factories; but he would tell the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the building trade that it was absolutely and utterly impossible to do anything of the kind. There was no continuity of employment in the building trade. A man was employed on Monday, and discharged on Wednesday, if there was no further use for him on the job on which he was employed. How were they to arrange for insurance in such a case, and he gave that as a mere illustration. It was very seldom that a man worked for any considerable number of years in one employment in any one of the industries connected with the building trade, and it would be impossible to arrange insurance under such conditions. That system of insurance struck at the very root of their reasons for this legislation. Their reason for this legislation was not the amount of money they obtained as compensation; they never put it forward on that condition, upon that basis. The first speech he (Mr. Broadhurst) had the honour to make in that House ho made from the Benches opposite on the Bill of 1880, and he then declared that they did not want to get money if they possibly could avoid it, and that their desire was to ensure a motive being given to employers to take every possible security for the lives and limbs of their men. They talked about compensation—compensation of £150 to a widow and her half-dozen children who had lost their bread-winner! Did they call that compensation? Why, it was no compensation at all. No doubt £150 was better than nothing; but no money in a case of that kind could be compensation, and it was well known that it was not money they asked for. It was protection to life that they wanted, and if an employer, not-withstanding the figures quoted to the contrary—and this was his opinion from great experience in these matters—if an employer could secure himself from all liability by the payment of 1d. per head for his accidents to his workmen into some common fund or some corporation for this purpose, his motive for saving life would be greatly diminished if not entirely destroyed. The employer would pay the same money per year, whether there were accidents or not, and what they required was that when there was an accident, through gross negligence, through bad plant and carelessly arranging material, that a fine should be imposed not of an exorbitant character, but such a fine should be imposed upon those responsible that they would take care in future that no repetition of the accident would occur if they possibly could avoid it. The larger the expenditure of money, the more care would be taken to prevent a repetition of such accidents. Now, the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary spoke with some pride of his success in securing the interests of workmen in Sub-section 3 of Clause 3 of this Bill. Would the House permit him (Mr. Broadhurst) to read half-a-dozen lines of Clause 3, and then he would ask whether hon. Members had ever read a clause so cleverly constructed to defy anyone to understand its meaning as this clause was? He thought there must have been some mistake in the course of the printing, and that the words of the clause had probably got jumbled together, for it could not possibly have been deliberately intended to draw such a provision as this. Sub-section 3 said— The insurance should be to such amount and on such conditions as will, having regard to the whole scope of the indemnity thereby given, and having regard to the proportion borne by the number of accidents in case of which the employer is liable to pay compensation under this Act to the number of accidents which are the subject of insurance, insure to the workman, or in case of death, his representatives, a benefit equivalent to the compensation recoverable under this Act. If he might use such an expression by the permission of Mr. Speaker, and without offence, it would puzzle a Philadelphian lawyer to understand this clause. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would in his interest in the Bill, and in defence of the reputation of drafting, strike this sub-section out, or have it recast in language which ordinary people could understand. He thought the right hon. Gentleman could not have noticed it at all, or he would not have allowed it to pass. Sub-section 4 was an extraordinary proposal. In it the right hon. Gentleman said that every condition of arrangement entered into for any other purpose of a similar character would be binding on the parties in a case coming under this Bill.—[Mr. MATTHEWS: Admissible as evidence.] He feared he went rather farther than that. They were not going to admit it as evidence even. It might be put in evidence that a firm in Plymouth em- ploying half a dozen men had made an arrangement for insurance with them, and this case might be used as evidence in dealing with the employés of a firm in Manchester, Liverpool, or Glasgow employing 500 or 1,000 men. He thought the right hon. Gentleman must see that they were not going to agree to any such extraordinary proposal as that. And now he would hurry to the last point, and that was the question of the limitation of compensation. He must ask the House to agree with him in this, that the life of a workman was worth more than £150. Now, there was the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a great financier and a man of very firm purpose and great business abilities, and he was sure the right hon. Gentleman with his great commercial knowledge would agree with him that the life of a workman was worth more than £150. They agreed to £150 in 1880. [Mr. MATTHEWS: Or three years' wages earned prior to accident.] In many cases the sum of £150 would be the amount in the case of a skilled workman, but that was not his point. His point was that the Labour Party agreed to conditions in 1880 which they were not now going to agree to in 1888. In 1880 it was the dawn of legislation of this kind. They, the Labour Party, out of the House, had to lead hon. Members of this House as they would lead timid children to the water; they had to lead them by degrees, and after years of agitation, and after the expenditure of large sums of money, they induced this timid, shivering, and shrinking House of Commons to give them a small instalment of what was right and just in matters of this kind. Well, the House took their lesson like the bold hon. Gentlemen they were, and the Labour Party now asked them for something wider, something higher, and something more difficult. They pointed to the fact that to-day the opposition they experienced in 1880 from the Party opposite had grown perceptibly less. The prophecy of ruin to the trade of the country which had been so largely indulged in had been falsified as the Labour Party knew it would be, and that Party now asked the Government to say that a workman's life was worth at least £500. There were some hon. Gentlemen who would ask the Government to remove all limit. The life of an M.P. might be worth £5,000. Well, but M.P.'s, as a rule, had fortunes to leave to their families, how much more then was the life of a working man worth when he had nothing to leave his family, and when there was nothing before his wife and family but poverty the moment the bread winner was removed? On that subject he and his Friends would have a great deal more to say, and later on he should move Amendments in harmony with the remarks he had made to the House. He would now only say one word as to Clause 12, which he rather thought the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary did not seem to be so well acquainted with as he was with some other parts of the Bill. Clause 12 gave compensation to seamen under certain circumstances, but the circumstances were so difficult that to his mind seamen would very rarely obtain compensation under the clause. He should, he hoped, hear much from hon. Gentlemen representing the seaport towns in support of his views on this matter. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had limited compensation to accidents arising in the case of a voyage commencing in a port in the United Kingdom. Did he understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that under this clause, in the case of a vessel sailing, say from San Francisco to Liverpool, and an accident occurring in the course of the voyage, the seaman would be entitled to recover? He (Mr. Broadhurst) thought they would not. What reason was there why a man meeting with an accident going out should be compensated for the accident if through the negligence of the employer, and yet when returning home be not so compensated for an accident? He thought that was the correct interpretation of the Bill. [Mr. MATTHEWS: No, no.] At any rate, he would call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to what the greatest authority in the Metropolis had said with regard to this clause, and he would ask hon. Gentlemen who were interested in the subject from the standpoint in which he (Mr. Broadhurst) was interested in it to pay some attention to this. This authority said that this new departure—namely, this Clause 12—was evidently the result of the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the loss of life at sea. [An hon. MEMBER: Who is the authority?] The authority was the London Chamber of Commerce. He was quoting from The Chamber of Commerce Journal of May 5 of the present year. That journal said— Shipowners, although objecting generally to the provision, did not appear to be much troubled by it, as they hoped to cover their responsibilities by insurance. Here was a confession of faith. They knew what that scheme of insurance was invented for in the first case, and what it was continued for now. It was to relieve the souls of those wealthy shipowners from financial trouble. The Chamber of Commerce consisted of shipowners, of great manufacturers of the City of London, and of great salesmen and others, and they said that they were not troubled much by the provision as they hoped to cover their liabilities by insuring out of them. That was a stronger condemnation of the right hon. Gentleman's 12th Clause than he (Mr. Broadhurst) should be prepared to pass on it. He only spoke with great diffidence and considerable hesitation as to whether the clause would ever be of much service to seamen. The Chamber of Commerce whose opinion he had quoted was a Chamber consisting of shipowners to a large extent, and they were very likely to know what would be the result of the provision. Seeing that the provision caused them no trouble, care, or anxiety, and that they would be able to cover all their liability by a system of insurance, it did not seem as though the provision would be of much use to seamen. For these reasons, and for others, he should feel it his duty when the Bill was read a second time—and he hoped many of his hon. Friends would do the same—to hand in such Amendments to the measure as would make it reasonable and just from the standpoint of the workmen properly entitled to compensation from their employers. He had only one other word to say, and that was with regard to the Committee to which the Bill should be referred. He heard it said that it was likely to go to the Grand Committee on Trade. He hoped, however, that it would be sent to the Grand Committee on Law, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would favourably consider that suggestion, as he (Mr. Broadhurst) thought the Grand Committee on Law would be a much more competent and suitable Committee to deal with a subject of that kind than would be the Committee on Trade, looking at its general composition. The hon. Member for East Donegal had given Notice of his intention to move the rejection of the Bill. He (Mr. Broadhurst) could only say that if the hon. Member should feel it to be his duty to move that Motion—which he hoped he would not do—speaking for himself, he should be unable to follow the hon. Member into the Lobby. He hoped and believed that they would be able so to amend the measure in Committee as to make it one of value to the working classes of the country.

MR. J. W. SIDEBOTTOM (Cheshire, Hyde)

said, he hoped the House would allow him to say a few words on this Bill—a Bill which greatly interested hon. Members—especially those who represented manufacturing and industrial constituencies. Owing to the limited time at their disposal, he must confine himself to one point, and that was the power of contracting out of the Act. He was very glad to find that the Government did not intend to make contracting out of the Act illegal, for he could not agree with the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Broadhurst) that it would be illegal under the Bill. It was not prohibited under the Act of 1880. That power had been used to a certain extent; but in many quarters it had been considered that in any amendment of the Act of 1880 the liberty should be withdrawn. He could speak on that matter absolutely without prejudice; because, although he was an employer himself, he had never contracted out of the Act, nor had he ever made any attempt to deprive his work-people of its benefits. He thought any employer of labour who would force his workpeople to contract out of any Act of Parliament passed for their benefit would be deserving of the most severe censure which could be passed on him by all right-thinking people. Then, why was he of the opinion that he had stated on the subject? In the first place, to look upon it from the workman's point of view. If he contracted himself out of the Act, and accepted the alternative laid down in the Bill—namely, insurance—he secured for himself compensation for every accident he might meet with in his work, and not merely for those due to the negligence of his employer. In mining, only one out of every ten cases was compensated, and then, very often, the compensation had to be secured by means of Law Courts. But under a scheme of insurance, every accident would be compensated at once, without any trouble and without any friction or ill-feeling on the part either of employer or employed. Then, as to employers. He did not think that, as regarded cost, they cared whether they were free to contract out of the Act or not; because, as the House know, it was a comparatively inexpensive thing now to insure against risk of accidents in one of the many Insurance Companies which existed for the purpose. He happened to know that in view of the passing of the Bill, at that very moment one or more Insurance Companies were being started for the express purpose of insuring employers against accidents under the Bill. There were many employers who wished for something more than that. They felt their responsibility towards their workpeople was higher than a mere legal responsibility, and would gladly pay double or treble the amount they would have to pay in premiums, if they could only secure compensation to their workpeople in every case of injury. He was glad the Government were not closing the door to voluntary co-operation of that kind, and he hoped that hon. Gentlemen representing labouring constituencies would agree with him when he said that while it was absolutely necessary to protect workpeople against negligent and careless employers, there were many cases in which it was the highest and best policy to form a scheme of mutual voluntary insurance to which employers and employed could contribute to give compensation to the latter in case of accidents.

MR. RANDELL (Glamorgan, Gower)

said, that in rising to address the House for the first time he felt sure of receiving that indulgence which was usually accorded to a new Member on such a trying occasion. In return, he hoped he should not have to detain the House for any length of time, and such observations as he had to offer upon the Bill he intended should not be made in any captious or hostile spirit, but rather with the view to extend the scope and widen the basis of the mea- sure, which he acknowledged was a decided improvement of the Act of 1880. He did not wish himself to labour the doctrine of common employment; but he felt there was no good reason for limiting the liability of employers in the manner proposed, and he trusted that the Bill would be so amended as to place a workman in relation to his fellow-workmen in the same position as any third person receiving injury whilst on the premises of the employer. He would also remind those who had charge of the Bill, that there were positions requiring skilled knowledge on the part of the employé, and yet that such places were filled by manifestly incompetent persons. In such cases, it surely could not be right to deprive the workman of his own claim to compensation for injuries arising out of accidents, owing to the incompetency and gross negligence of his fellow-working man. But there was another question of considerable importance—he meant of contractors and sub-contractors. Section 2, which referred to the point, did not, he thought, as drawn, apply to all such cases as it was no doubt intended that it should apply. Take the following instance. A mineowner engaged a sub-contractor to sink a shaft, at so much per yard. The sub-contractor, in turn, employed some dozen men to do the work, and paid them so much per week, all materials being supplied by the mineowner. The sub-contractor was usually a man of straw. Well, owing to imperfect shoring, a stone at the side of the shaft fell, and killed one of the working men. Under the law as it now stood, he ventured to say, the interpretation which would be placed upon the Bill, if it became law, would be that a workman had no right to compensation against the principal employer in respect of such an accident. He knew of an accident of the kind, where the representatives of a deceased workman had sought to enforce a claim for damages, and had obtained a judgment in the County Court below; but, on appeal, that judgment was reversed, although the fact was in evidence that the mine-owner's engineer superintended the work of the sub-contractor in respect of the contract. He maintained that this subsection, as drawn, would not cover that position; and he, therefore, trusted that another clause would be added to definitely remedy the same. Then, as to notice before action, he was of decided opinion that that notice should be done away with altogether. He thought that it only embarrassed the position of the workman injured, or the position of his relatives in the case of his death. Certainly, the extension of time from six weeks to three months was an improvement; but, as he had said, he thought that the notice should be done away with altogether. If a man was seriously injured, by the time he was sufficiently recovered to consider his position, he was surprised to find that his legal rights were gone. If notice had to be given, there was no reason why it should be before action. In all actions of tort he thought it desirable that the statutory period for commencement of an action should be considerably shortened—say, 12 months from the accident, or in case of death, two years. He thought the hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst) was wrong so far as the interpretation he placed on the Act of 1880 was concerned. He thought that Act gave no alternative as to the limit of the amount recoverable. It was in the Bill, for the first time, that it was sought as an alternative to place the sum of £150 as the limit of the sum recoverable; and he agreed that that amount was far too small. He would prefer leaving the question of compensation to be dealt with by a jury; but he thought that, if they fixed any limit at all, the amount should be increased to £500. It would be preferable, in his opinion, however, to leave the matter in the hands of a jury, for they would know the circumstances of each case, and the matter might safely be entrusted to them. Then, as to the question of the application of the Act to seamen. He had hoped, certainly, after the words which had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, who introduced the Bill, that the Government would have dealt more liberally with poor Jack than they appeared to do in the Bill. Looking at the sub-sections, it seemed that the remedy of the sailor was restricted to injury received in port. Sailors were a class of men who had not been so well looked after as they deserved, and he trusted that their rights of action would be more fully looked after by the Government than they appeared to be in this Bill. Then, coming to the definitions of the Bill, it was to be hoped that the expression "workman" would be held to include domestic or menial servants, clerks, omnibus conductors, and tramway conductors. One would desire that the Bill should apply to every person in the position of a servant. As to the question of the time it was contemplated that the Act should come into operation, it should not be lost sight of that the old Act expired by effluxion of time at the end of this Session, and that the new Act should come into operation immediately after the passing of the same. There was evidently now a ready disposition to admit the claims and rights of the working classes, and he trusted that no political partizanship on the one side or the other would be the means of thwarting such good intentions.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.)

said, he had put a Notice on the Paper to move the rejection of the Bill, but had done so rather with the desire to prevent the Bill being taken after half-past 12 o'clock, if by chance the House should sit so late. Certainly, he should be the very last person in the House to object to the passing of some such Bill as that, because he knew that the Bill now put forward by the Government was to a large extent a recast of a Bill of his own which was referred to a Select Committee last Session. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews), referring to that Bill, appeared to labour under the impression that both his (Mr. O'Connor's) Bill, and that of his hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt), did away with the doctrine of common employment altogether. He could answer for one of those Bills, and say that it was not correct to state that it did away with the doctrine of common employment at all, nor did he desire that it should be done away with. Suppose two men, under a common employer, were working together at a large stone, and one man happened to be negligent in handling the stone and that it fell and the other workman was injured; it seemed to him most reasonable that the common employer should be made responsible for that negligence. But what they were anxious last year to procure was that the employer should not be allowed to contract himself out of the liability under the Act of 1880, and that the workman should not be liable to contract himself out of the benefit of the Act. The provisions which were placed in this Bill under Section 3 appeared to him to be absolutely unworkable. As the French said, the door must either be open or shut; the liability must either be on the employer, and there must be no means of contracting himself out of the Act, or else all the arrangements they might make would inevitably end in disappointment, and the effect of the Bill would be a bolstering up of Employers' Liability Insurance Companies. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the Bill as if it were an improvement on the existing law, so far as the interests of the working classes were concerned, and he went on to say that he proposed to simplify the law by combining the Common Law action with the action under the Employers' Liability Act. But he did more than that. He (Mr. O'Connor) would ask the House to consider the force of the 11th section of the present Bill, which related to Common Law rights; the clause was to the effect that where any personal injury was caused to a workman by reason of any wrongful act in connection with the works in which a workman was employed, and the workman was entitled, independently of the Act, to any compensation from the employer, the action for compensation should be brought in the same time and on the same motion as if it had been brought under the Act, and should not be brought otherwise. In that way this Bill, which affected to be in the interest of the working classes, really cut down the Common Law right of the workman to an action under the Act; that was to say, he would only be able to bring an action within the limited time and upon notice being given to the employer. The question of notice was a very important matter; because, in consequence of the action of many employers, workmen were deluded into delaying proceedings by the belief that it would not be necessary to bring an action against the employers at all. He said that that cut down the existing Common Law right; but, again, in Clause 1, Sub-section B, the phraseology was so arranged that the liability of the employer was further reduced at the expense of the workman. Under the Employers' Lia- bility Act of 1880, if any person having superintendence entrusted to him should be guilty of negligence whereby a workman was injured, the workman so injured should have compensation at the hands of the employer; but the effect of this new clause was that unless the injured workmen was actually under the superintendence of the man who was negligent, he would have no right of action against the employer. There, again, they had a reduction of the employers' liability at the expense of the workman. In order to test this clause he would like to quote a word or two from what he believed to be the best handbook on employers' liability, which said on this point— A acts as general superintendent over workmen employed in one department of a factory, and orders one of the workmen to lower a bale of goods from a window by a chain insufficient for the purpose; the chain breaks, and the bale of goods injures a workman in the same factory, but one over whom A exercises no superintendence. Under this Act he is liable. But, under the present Bill, he would not be liable by reason of want of superintendence exercised over the negligent official. The clause, therefore, required very great attention, in order to prevent it being liable to the objection he (Mr. O'Connor) had pointed out. Again, the class of persons who could bring an action under the Bill would be limited, as before, to those who were entitled under the Act of 1880. The Act of 1880 said in its 1st section that a workman, or, in case of injury resulting in death, the legal personal representative of the workman, and any person entitled to represent him in case of death, should have the same right to compensation against the employer. But Section 8 of this Bill said that the persons amongst whom compensation for injury should be awarded were husband, wife, parent, or child. If they were going to combine the action under the Act with the Common Law action, they would have a difficulty with regard to the terms of Lord Campbell's Act, which included with the wife, husband, parent, and child, grandparents, grandchildren, and stepchildren. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Matthews) said that that was in the Bill. He hoped it might be so; but there were authorities in legal circles who held a different opinion. The right hon. Gentleman also spoke of the disadvantage of actions abating in case of death. It was true that Sub-section 4 of Section 1 provided that an action under that section should lie against the representative of a deceased employer. So far, so good; but while it provided for continuation of an action on the death of the representative of the employer, the right hon. Gentleman seemed to have overlooked the case of the death of the injured workman. ["No, no!"] The right hon. Gentleman said "No;" but he could find in the Bill no provision by which an action commenced by an injured man should be allowed to continue at the hands of his representatives. With regard to Section 3, and the compensation of workmen under contractors or sub-contractors, it seemed to him that that was a recasting, and not a very good one, of his own Bill of last Session. He thought his own drafting was better. With regard to the voidance of contracts dealt with in Section 3, he had only two points to remark upon. In the first place, he would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that, unless the jurisdiction of the County Court was increased, there would be a limitation of actions in these cases. Then, with regard to Sub-section 4 of Section 3, which had been already quoted by the hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst), it provided that any arrangement or agreement entered into by persons in similar employment elsewhere should be admissible as evidence of the reasonableness or propriety of any system of insurance entered into between employers and their men. He asked whether that similarity was to be treated as an issue of fact, or was it held to be a question of law? Was it a point on which appeal would lie? Again, in Section 6, Subsection 2, it was provided that on trial of an action in the County Court without a jury, one or more assessors might be appointed for the purpose of ascertaining the amount of compensation. Now, no one could doubt the, propriety of having skilled assessors where it might be necessary; but that two assessors should be required to help my qualified Court or jury to assess the amount of compensation was a thing that no one ever heard of. He suggested that it would have been well to follow the recommendation of the select Committee of last year, which was that there should be special juries—that the parties should be entitled to have special juries wherever the case in the opinion of the Court warranted it. That would be much more useful than the appointment of these assessors, who were to do nothing but assess the amount of compensation. With regard to the question of seamen, he was agreeably surprised, when on the Committee, to find that although there were three Representatives of the ship-owning interest upon it, every one of them in the most loyal and generous spirit agreed in the recommendation that seamen should be included in the benefit of the Bill. He was glad to acknowledge the action of an hon. Gentleman who was sitting opposite who had no hesitation in supporting that proposal; but he regretted that the clause had been limited. It was only in case of tackle issuing from a port in the United Kingdom proving defective that a man injured in consequence was entitled to recover compensation from the owners. But it was perfectly possible for the master of a ship in any part of the world to have his vessel put in proper order and provide proper tackle. San Francisco had been suggested; but a bottomry bond could always be given for the money necessary to enable a master to put his ship in proper working order, and, therefore, why a man should not be entitled to compensation who was injured on the voyage home just as much as the man injured on the outward voyage, he could not understand. He did not wish to detain the House longer, but there was one further flaw in the Bill that he desired to point out. The right hon. Gentleman had referred, among other things, to the insurance fund in connection with the London and North-Western Railway, and he spoke of the system obtaining there as very satisfactory, and appeared to think that if other employers of labour had established the same system, there would be nothing to find fault with. But the right hon. Gentleman did not tell the House that the system was compulsory, and that the men were obliged to submit to it as a condition of employment, and that the men, if left to themselves, would prefer to trust to the benefit of the Employers' Liability Act. There was one clause in the Bill which related to procedure in Scotch Courts; but, as that appeared to be rather a question for Committee than the present stage of the Bill, he would not make further comment upon it. Before sitting down, he would like to endorse the opinion of the hon. Member for West Nottingham—namely, that this Bill should not be referred to the Committee on Trade, but to the Committee on Law. There was nothing in the Bill which required that it should be referred to the Committee on Trade, but there were many points as to which it would be well that it should be considered by the Committee on Law.

MR. AINSLIE (Lancashire, North Lonsdale)

said, that as one of the Committee which sat on the Bills two years ago, he felt he was bound to say something in reference to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, and particularly to that portion of it in which he spoke of the position that those whom he described as the Representatives of the employers of labour had taken up. He (Mr. Ainslie) deprecated altogether even the supposition that the Representatives, so-called, of the employers of labour had had any other object in view than that of benefiting the working classes; and, not only that, but he thought that from the recommendations of the Select Committee, and from the names of those who supported the various proposals submitted at the conclusion of the Committee, they might judge what the employers of labour desired to do. He wished also to protest against the language of the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst) who seemed to think that hon. Members on that side of the House were disposed to put a money value upon the life of a workman. In fixing the limit of compensation at £150, as an alternative to three years' wages, the Committee had in view, as he thought hon. Members ought to be informed, more particularly the case of boys and apprentices, to whom an injury in early life was of the gravest moment, and who, if lamed, had a very limited scope of means of subsistence open to them in after life. The idea was that £150 to an apprentice or youth was probably a fair limit. The hon. Member for the Gower Division of Glamorgan (Mr. Randell) rightly interpreted the idea covered in the clause, providing that where negligence was shown punishment would follow, not merely in the mulcting a sum of money from the employer, for there was also a criminal liability to which the employer was subjected. Both these things must be before the mind of every employer when he was engaging workmen and fitting up the machinery necessary to their employment. One matter, which had been left out of sight by hon. Gentlemen who had spoken in the debate so far, was that they, who it might be said represented in the Select Committee the employers of labour, represented two classes of employers—the large employers of labour and the small employers of labour. They particulary had in mind the small employers of labour, the men whose whole capital probably was covered by £50 or £100, and who if they were to be mulcted in the sum of £500, as some hon. Members had suggested, would simply be ruined men. It was to protect these men, as well as large men, that some limit to the money they would have to pay was fixed. With regard to contracting and sub-contracting, he had tried to find out where the limit could be fixed. He did not feel sure, for instance, that if he was painting his house, as he was bound to do so many times in the course of a lease, he would not be liable for compensation for any accidents that might happen to the men engaged by the man employed by him. The wording of the language was so wide that he had to seek not where the narrow limit was, but where the utmost limit was to which the language might extend. He thought that a few words might with advantage be inserted in Committee, defining the limit of responsibility. In regard to the time of the notice, he thought that the Committee went to the utmost limit in their recommendations. He was bound to say that in regard to Sub-section 3, Clause 3, which was the subject of much animadversion by the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst), he was for a very long time puzzled to understand what the meaning of that sub-section was. But he thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, in his opening speech, made it sufficiently clear that if any alteration in the wording were wanted, he would take care it was made in Committee. He thanked the House for the patience with which they had listened to these few observations.

MR. LOCKWOOD (York)

said, he would not detain the House at any length, because he assured hon. Gentle- man who sat opposite that he was not going to criticize the Bill in any hostile spirit. They, who sat on the Opposition side of the House, must recognize that what the Home Secretary said in introducing the Bill was perfectly true—that that was, after all, an amending Bill, and if there were faults in it, the blame should not rest entirely upon the Head of the Government who had introduced it. The main faults which he found in the Bill were faults which existed in the Bill of 1880, and his regret was that the Government should have found it necessary to perpetuate those faults in what the Home Secretary had rightly called the amending Bill of that year. Now, to put it shortly, the main objections he had to the Bill were these. The Bill purported to recognize the injustice of the doctrine of common employment, as it was called. It recognized the injustice to a certain extent, but it did away with the good which would result from that recognition by imposing upon the litigants—he was speaking of the plaintiffs who would bring actions under the Bill—harassing conditions, which were a great burden upon such litigants. He objected entirely to the notice of action. For whose benefit was it—for the benefit of the employer? It must be, of course, for his benefit. But what right had the employer to notice of action? In nine cases out of ten the accident happened upon his own premises, and he had direct personal notice of it. If the accident did not happen upon his own premises, it happened where his workmen were working for him, and in that way he had direct notice of it. The great Railway Companies, whose systems extended from one end of the country to the other, had no notice of action in the case of accidents which were the result of their negligence at any part of their systems. There were the great Omnibus Companies plying through the streets of the Metropolis; they surely were more entitled to notice of action than an employer whom it sought under the Bill to make liable for accidents which occurred practically upon his own premises. He thanked the Home Secretary for the figures he had been kind enough to supply him. According to those figures, there were 1,800 actions; but in only 684 had the litigants been successful, the percentage of suc- cessful actions thus being about 38; but how came it that there were only 684 successful actions out of 1,800; how many of the persons who brought the actions had been made unsuccessful litigants by reason of being trammelled and hampered and harassed by this very notice of action? It was all very well for lawyers like himself to preserve this notice of action, because it was a fruitful source of litigation. Over and over again it happened that when a working man had gone into Court some objection was taken to his notice of action. The question upon whom the notice should be served, and as to within what time it should be served, and a great number of other considerations, rendered this a very harassing matter for litigants. He objected to the limit within which the action was to be brought. Why impose a limit of six months? Look at the cruel hardship which accrued from that. He had no doubt that many hon. Members remembered the case of "Johnson v. Shaw." In that case a man was injured in January, 1883, and by his injuries he was rendered insane. He was put into a lunatic asylum from which he was only brought out—fortunately cured—in July. That man had no means of appointing a committee to represent him in the action, and while that poor fellow was lying maimed and insane in the asylum, time was running against him. When he came out, the six months had expired, and he could not bring his action. There would be as cruel cases of hardship under this Bill. Hon. Members would find that one of the sub-clauses—Sub-clause 4, he believed—gave right of action against representatives of employers. But, supposing an accident happened, and immediately after the workmen had been injured the employer died. They knew what the delays of the law were, and therefore they could easily understand that more than six months might be taken up in the appointment of a representative of the employer who might be sued. In the meantime, the law's delays had prevented the workmen from bringing their action, and time had run against them. Surely, that was an injustice. Now, the third objection he had had reference to the matter of amount. Why did they limit the amount? They were told by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Ainslie) that the Committee, in fixing the amount of compensation at £150, had boys and apprentices chiefly in view. He (Mr. Lockwood) did not see why they should value the life of a boy at £150. Why not trust the juries? The Government were continually telling the House they had confidence in juries. Why did they say that, with regard to employers, the amount of compensation which they should pay should be limited, whereas in all other cases there was no limit as to the amount of compensation? These were his three objections to the Bill. Of course he had others, but he was not going to occupy the time of the House in discussing them. Surely, it was not a very generous provision of the Bill, when they were professing to deal with the working man so far as his employer was concerned, and they were professing to put that man on an equality with third parties who were not employed. Surely, it was not a very generous thing to take away or to hamper or to harass the working man's Common Law right of action. On what principle was that done; how came it that it had been introduced into the Bill? It might have been introduced to satisfy some of the Gentlemen who sat opposite, and who, it would appear, he thought, from one portion of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks, were not pleased with some of the provisions of the Bill, but who took great care to assure the right hon. Gentleman that there was no feeling of displeasure at the measure on their part. He (Mr. Lockwood) did not wish to say anything which could have a hostile bearing on the Bill, for he certainly joined with those who deprecated any Division against the Bill. It was, no doubt, an important question to what Committee the Bill should be referred. This was a Bill which involved questions of procedure, and the clause relating to procedure appeared to him to be the most important clause of the Bill. It was suggested by some Members that the Bill should be entrusted to the Grand Committee upon Trade. Of course, that Committee was quite able to deal with the many questions involved; but they were not, he submitted, capable of dealing effectively and effectually with questions of procedure, and he could only say that, if the Bill were sent to the Trade Committee, when it came back on Report those Members who took an interest in the matter would take an opportunity of being heard again upon the Bill.

COLONEL HILL (Bristol, S.)

said, he could assure hon. Members that he should make but a very slight demand upon their time. As a shipowner, he desired to say that he had no wish whatever to offer any opposition to the second reading of the Bill; and he thought he might say that shipowners in general had no wish whatever to avoid any degree of responsibility which properly rested upon them, as upon all other employers of labour, to see that the conditions of their employment afforded the greatest amount of possible safety to the men they employed. But he wished to remind the House that there was a very considerable difference between the conditions of employment on land and at sea. The owner of a mine or a factory had the opportunity, as often as he pleased to avail himself of it, of visiting his mine or factory, and seeing that the precautions that he had ordered were being properly observed. The shipowner had not that opportunity. He might have the best possible vessel; he might have the very best equipment; and he might have the vessel manned and officered by men whom he knew to be good and skilful men, men who had obtained certificates from the Board of Trade to that effect; but when the vessel had gone away he was unable to exercise any supervision at all over her. Then he (Colonel Hill) ventured to say that the immunity from accident on board a vessel depended in a very great degree upon the skill of those on board rather than on anything the owner had had it in his power to do; and there was this also, that it was to the shipowners' self-interest in a very large degree, in a larger degree than in the case of employers on shore, that accidents should not happen. If an accident happened in a mine or a factory, it meant the stoppage of the profit-earning powers of the mine or factory for a certain limited time; but in the case of a ship it was quite different. An accident might deprive the owner of any profit for the whole twelve months, or, at all events, for the whole voyage in which the vessel was engaged. Three months' notice had been objected to in the case of employers on shore, and one of the great reasons of the hon. and learned Member for York (Mr. Lockwood) why there should not be any notice was, that accidents happened at the very door of the employer, as it were, and that the employer had direct personal notice of them. That, however, was not the case with shipowners. But there was another circumstance to be taken into account; a vessel came home, and, as hon. Members were aware, the crew was paid off. Now, if the shipowner had no notice of any claim, he had no means of providing himself with the necessary evidence with which to rebut any incorrect statement which might be made. Then he also urged that no special reason existed for the application of this provision to shipowners; for the latest Return of the loss of life at sea showed that the shipping trade was carried on with increasing immunity from accidents. The last Return, which was published in the April of this very year, showed that in 1885, the last year for which there was any Return, the total loss of life was 1,068. That was a decrease of 425 on the previous year, and the decrease of 1,072 on the average of the last 10 years. He thought the House would feel that that was a satisfactory statement, and that it showed that the shipowners had not been so oblivious to the claims of "Poor Jack" as had been asserted by hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House. Then, again, shipowners and sailors were on very good terms, and he instanced, as a proof of that, that only a very short time ago he had the honour of introducing in the House a Bill which proposed to provide funds jointly by shipowners and sailors for the relief of widows and orphans. But if, however, upon these grounds it might not be considered desirable to except shipping from the operation of this Bill as it was in 1880, he hoped that the Committee, whether it be the Committee on Trade—which seemed to him to be the proper Committee—or the Committee on Law, to which the Bill was referred, would accept certain Amendments for the purpose of simplifying and adapting the Bill to shipping. Amendments would be brought forward to the effect that the liability should be confined to the equipments and fittings only. It had been said that the sailor ought to have the same right to com- pensation for an accident occurring on the homeward voyage as upon the outward voyage, because there was every facility abroad for refitting the vessels. But that was not always the case. There were places abroad where one could not get as good materials as one would wish to get, and the master had to manage with the best materials he could obtain. The shipowner had no control over such incidents. With regard to the question of time, he had already endeavoured to point out the difficulty which existed, and he would only mention further that the Accidental Insurance Companies insisted upon a notice of claim being given a very short time after the accident. He did not see any reason why notice of claim should not be given immediately upon the arrival of a vessel in port, and he hoped the Committee would see the desirability of adopting the Amendment to that effect. Then there were certain complicated suggestions made in Sub-section C, Clause 12, which would give to the Board of Trade a great deal of power in regard to the classification of vessels and the like, which he thought would be very intolerable. He had only to add that personally he desired that the occupation of the working man should be rendered as little hazardous as possible, and that he hailed with satisfaction any just and proper measure having that tendency.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE (Bradford, Central)

said, that at that hour of the night (11.40) he would only detain the House three for four minutes; but having been one of those who originally before 1878 most strongly recommended this legislation to the House, he was anxious to say a few words. In the first place, he wished to say that it was very satisfactory to him to find a general concurrence of opinion now-a-days in favour of the principle of this Bill, He fully confirmed what his hon. Friend the Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst) had said—namely, that those who originally promoted this Bill had in view mainly, not so much the giving of compensation in such cases, as the giving of fresh motive to employers to take care in carrying on their works. He thought that principle had been borne in mind in this Bill; but he hoped that it might be somewhat extended in the course of the passage of the Bill through Committee. There was one point he wished specially to advert to—namely, the application of the Bill to seamen. The Royal Commission, of which he was Chairman a few years ago, attached the very greatest importance to the extension of the provisions of the Act to seamen; they did so in the interest of the general security of seamen, not so much with the view of giving compensation to the men in particular cases, but because they thought that this was one of the best ways of bringing home responsibilities to the shipowners, and inducing them to conduct their business in a manner conducive to the safety of the men. He was afraid the Bill as it stood, as regarded seamen, was somewhat too restrictive, and he hoped that in Committee it would be improved in that respect. He did not see any reason for making so great a distinction between homeward and outward bound vessels as was made in the Bill. The owner of a ship who was sending the vessel to a foreign port was not in any worse position than the employer who employed an agent at home. A shipowner must at a port in a distant country employ an agent, and it was the agent's duty to see that the vessel was in as fit a state to return as it was to go out, and therefore he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) hoped that in this respect there would be some change made in the Bill. He very much objected to the sub-sections of the clause to which the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had adverted—namely, those subsections giving power to the Board of Trade to make specific regulations with respect to the equipment of vessels. That was the introduction of a provision to which the Royal Commission had objected, and he hoped that these subsections would disappear. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the changes proposed with regard to the doctrine of common employment, but he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had been unable to make out whether the Bill made any important changes in the law as compared with the Act of 1880. He had compared the Bill with the Act of 1880, and he found that it was extremely difficult to make out the phraseology. The only other point he would refer to was the question of forbidding persons to contract themselves out of the Act. He entirely approved of that provision; but at the same time he was willing to admit that there was a great deal to be said for the principle of contracting out of the Bill in cases of mutual insurance. In conclusion, he had to say that he agreed with those who suggested that the Bill should be referred to the Grand Committee on Law, because he believed that, on the whole, that would give greater satisfaction than referring it to the Committee on Trade.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)

said, he desired to make an appeal to the House with regard to this Bill. He did not feel justified in exercising any pressure, looking to the importance of the subject under discussion; but he gathered from the debate which had gone so far that it was the general wish of Members that the measure should be referred to a Grand Committee—to either the Committee on Law or the Committee on Trade, as to which question the Government desired to express no opinion that evening. They desired to reserve any expression of opinion upon that subject, and they had no prejudice in regard to it in one direction or the other. But, looking at the fact that that was practically the last night on which it was possible to discuss a question of that kind before the Holidays, and that the time after the Holidays was very fully appropriated, he thought he gathered that the general desire of the House was that the Bill should be read a second time that night. If that was the wish, he trusted that hon. Members would be content to reserve any observations they might have to make for a future occasion, and especially until the Bill was sent to a Committee, when full opportunity would be afforded them to raise any question in which they took an interest. He thought it would be for the public advantage and for the convenience of Members generally that the Bill should now be read a second time.

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

said, he quite agreed with the general views expressed by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H. Smith); but he did not quite understand when they were to hear from the Government, if the discussion closed that night, to which of the two Committees the Bill was to be referred. He thought there would be much greater willingness on the part of hon. Gentlemen behind him to assent to the proposal to take the second reading of the Bill that night, if they had a clear assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that the Government would accede to the appeal which had been made by every speaker on the Opposition side of the House, and, he believed, on the other side, that the Bill should be referred to the Committee on Law.

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, there must be a distinct Motion on that question, and the Government would put down the Motion to refer the Bill to either the Committee on Law or on Trade on the Monday after the Whitsuntide Holidays.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

Are we to understand it is the wish of the Government that the Bill should be referred to the Committee on Law?

MR. W. H SMITH

said, he was not quite prepared to say that. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] They had no prejudice at all in the matter, and they would endeavour to gather the general feeling of hon. Members interested in the question on both sides of the House, and take the best means they could of ascertaining the views of the House generally. It was a matter on which they could form no decided opinion now; and, therefore, he hoped the House would permit them to leave the matter open until they reassembled.

MR. MACINNES (Northumberland, Hexham)

said, that the right hon. Gentleman had asked them to assist him in taking the second reading of the Bill that night. If they assented to the second reading now, he hoped that hon. Gentlemen opposite would give them credit for very considerable self-denial. Very many of them had taken a great interest in this question, and they had wished to have it fully and amply discussed in the House; but all the opportunity of discussion permitted to them had been the very short space of time from 20 minutes to 11 to 10 minutes before midnight, because the previous hour was occupied by two speeches—of course, very interesting—from Gentlemen upon the Front Benches. The mass of Members, especially his hon. Friends connected with the mining interest, who took especial interest in this matter, would have no further opportunity of taking part in the debate. There was much discussion as to whether the Bill should be referred to the Committee on Trade or to that on Law; but to the great majority of Members that question was necessarily of no interest. It must necessarily be the case that the great majority of Members had not seats on either of those Committees; and, therefore, if the second reading was passed to-night, the vast majority of Members would have no further opportunity of taking part in the discussion on the Bill. If they did agree to the second reading then, he hoped hon. Members, when they met their constituents during the Holidays, would acknowledge that in this instance, as in other instances during the Session, hon. Members upon the Opposition Benches had shown no obstructive tendencies, as hon. Gentlemen sometimes wished to make out.

MR. FENWICK (Northumberland, Wansbeck)

I beg to move the adjournment of the debate.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Fenwick.)

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, that he could not, of course, object to an adjournment if it was pressed by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway; but he would regret it very much, for he thought it would postpone the progress of a measure in which they took an especial interest. It was really impossible to say when it would be in the power of the Government to name another day on which the Bill could be taken.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)

said, he understood that the chief question now at issue was whether the Bill should be referred to the Committee upon Law or to that upon Trade. Personally, he thought that it would be better that the Bill should be discussed in Committee of the Whole House. As to the adjournment of the debate, he was opposed to the Friends with whom he usually acted. If they had prepared speeches, and wanted a sitting to-morrow, he did not want such a sitting, although he could come down just as well as they. Certainly, he thought they would be disappointed in the intention they had in view, because they would not have a House to-morrow, or, if they did, the vast majority of the House would be composed of the Government Supporters. An hon. Friend of his suggested that the Question should be put; he did not object to that, because he only rose with the object of facilitating matters if he could. He had understood that this important measure, with which they all sympathised in principle, would be read a second time that night, and that there would be no need to come down to the House to-morrow. Of course, if there was a Division to be taken, he would vote with his hon. Friend who had moved the adjournment of the debate; but he should only do so from personal motives. If his hon. Friends were anxious that they should have another opportunity of discussing the Bill, he would support them in their endeavour to get it; but he promised them an empty House to-morrow and an inattentive country, whereas if they followed his advice, and agreed to some sensible arrangement, they might, at some future time, have a favourable opportunity of discussing all the points of the Bill.

DR. TANNER (Cork Co., Mid)

said, that at an earlier hour in the evening the Closure was moved by an hon. Member upon the Opposition side of the House, and now, at that late hour, 4 minutes to 12 o'clock, it appeared the Government were not satisfied with their great exploits in the course of the present sitting, but wished to obtain an opportunity, if they possibly could, of bringing on a measure which stood in the name of the Chancellor of the Ex-chequer. He certainly thought the desire of those who took an especial interest in the Bill, and who had every right to be heard, should be acceded to by the Government. Without wishing to take up any further time of the House, he sincerely trusted that the Motion for the Adjournment would be accepted.

MR. W. ABRAHAM (Glamorgan, Rhondda)

trusted the Government would allow the Bill to be adjourned till tomorrow.

Question put, and agreed to.

Debate adjourned till To-morrow, at Two of the clock.