HC Deb 30 March 1893 vol 10 cc1569-92

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment [24th March] proposed to Question [20th February], "That the Bill be now read a second time."

And which Amendment was, To leave out from the word, "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words. "That no amendment of the Law relating to Employers' Liability will be final or satisfactory which does not provide compensation to work men for all injuries sustained in the ordinary course of their employment, and not caused by their own acts or default,'"—(Mr. Chamberlain.] —instead thereof.

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

Debate resumed.

MR J. HAVELOCK WILSON

said, he rose to support the Bill as drafted by the Government. There were many hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House who were very anxious that he should not take up a large amount of the time of that Sitting, and he would promise these Gentlemen that if they would consent to shorten their speeches he, for his part, would compress his remarks as much as possible. But he did think that the seamen of this country were entitled to some consideration from the House. When the previous Employers' Liability Bill was before the House of Commons there was no one to represent the seamen. They had no organisation, they had no one in Parliament to put their views before the Government, or they would have been included in the Act of 1880. Why, he asked, did the shipowners object to the seamen having the benefit of the Employers' Liability Bill? The shipowners contended that it was not right to hold them responsible for accidents which occurred on board their ships over which they had no control. He submitted that the shipowner in that respect was in no different position from the mine owner. The shipowners said they provided their servants with a proper ship and equipment, with a captain who had got a Board of Trade certificate, and that, therefore, when they had sent their vessels on their voyage their responsibility should be at an end. He contended that a mine owner was much in the same position. Take Lord Londonderry or the Earl of Durham or any other large mine owners who had large numbers of mines. It was not possible for them to be at all times at their mines, and he ventured to say that many mine owners in this country never saw their mines from one year's end to another. They, however, did everything to make the mines safe. They appointed a manager who had obtained a Government certifi- cate, but in the event of an accident through the neglect of that manager it would not avail the owner of the mine very much to go into Court and plead that he was not in the mine when the accident occurred. He contended that as long as a captain was on board a ship the shipowner was represented by that captain; in fact, the shipowner was in a much better position altogether than the mine owner, because the captain of a vessel had powers which were not possessed by the manager of a mine. He had the power, for instance, to put any other crew in irons who disobeyed his orders; he had the power to direct the crew to go aloft, no matter how great the danger might be, and in the event of their refusing, he could put them in prison. It would be possible for owners and managers of cotton and other mills to set up the same plea as the shipowners, and say that because they were not immediately in the mill that they ought not to be held responsible for any accident that might occur through the neglect of their manager. The shipowners said that they ought not to be held responsible for any accidents that occurred on board their ship when outside the United Kingdom. But he would point out that the shipowners were responsible at the present time for the acts of their captain on the high sea and abroad. If two ships collided with each other, and one of the ships foundered, if the vessel that foundered was not in fault, the owner of the vessel that caused the collision was held responsible for the vessel that had been sunk, and also for the lives of the men who were on board the latter vessel. The shipowner was not on board, yet the law as it stood at the present time held him responsible.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES

Only up to a certain limit.

MR. J. H. WILSON

said, it was time that this responsibility was limited to the extent of £10 per ton. He wanted to put another case. If a ship was taking in cargo abroad—it might be taking in machinery or casks or run— if any injury was sustained to this machinery by the neglect of the captain to provide proper equipment to take that cargo on board, although the owner of the ship was not there he was at the present time held responsible for any damage. Yet it was now asked that the shipowner should not be held responsible for the lives and limbs of the men who sailed in his ship. The sailors were under entirely different laws compared with other working men. They had no right to tell their officers on board ship that to perform a certain work would be dangerous, but at all times they must be obedient to the lawful commands of the officers of the ship, and were not allowed to exercise any judgment of their own as were other workmen. Three years ago he remembered a barque arriving in the Tyne from San Francisco. During the voyage home complaints were made by the crew about the food. The captain replied in sharp words and promised to work the men up for their impertinence in complaining. He ordered three of them to go aloft and scrape the mizen gaff. The ship was rolling and pitching at (he time, and the men objected, as it was dangerous. They said they would do the work if the gaff was lowered on to the deck, and thereupon they wore entered in the ship's log as having wilfully disobeyed the "lawful" commands of the master. In this case the safety of the ship was not involved in the least, nor was it necessary to grease or scrape the gaff for the purpose of the navigation of the ship; but the order was simply given in order to punish the men. An apprentice was ultimately ordered aloft to do the work, and he, being afraid of disobeying the captain, did the work, and at the end of the voyage, after the men had signed clear of the ship and had received their wages, they were arrested for disobeying the lawful commands of the master, taken before two shipowning Magistrates and sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment without the option of a fine. If the men had consented to do the work and an accident had occurred, the shipowner would not have been held responsible, nor would the captain, because their defence would have been that in the superior judgment of the captain it was safe to do the work. The shipowner pointed out that the captain very often died abroad—a ship went out of the United Kingdom, the captain died abroad; the British Consul appointed someone in his place whom the men had not seen and of whom they knew nothing. Was not this harder on the sailors than on the shipowner? They were bound by their articles for 12 mouths. No matter whom the Consul appointed they were bound to serve, perhaps knowing at the time that their lives were in danger, whereas in the case of the shipowner all he risked was the loss of property. Then, if the crew during the voyage discovered that the captain was incompetent, they had no right to object to him, however much their lives might be in danger. Here was a case in point. A vessel signed articles in Glasgow to go a voyage to Sydney, New South Wales. From the time of leaving the United Kingdom until they got to the Cape of Good Hope all went well, but after that they encountered a succession of gales in running the eastern longitude, and they shipped a number of heavy seas. The captain lost his head and became so incompetent that he was unable to give any orders whatever. For several days he remained below, and drank whisky and prayed. The management of the vessel was left in the hands of the chief officer, and under the circumstances the crew resolved to refuse to obey any further orders the captain might give. They further got up a petition, which was signed by all the crew, including the second officer, and read it to the captain, deposing him, and recognising the chief officer for the time being. This was done in the shipowner's interests as well as in the interests of the lives of the men on board. The chief officer navigated the vessel to Sydney, and on the arrival at that port the first man on shore was the captain, who obtained warrants for the arrest of the crew. They were tried and sentenced to one month's imprisonment each; but so indignant was the public against this treatment meted out to the crew, that the adjournment of the New South Wales Parliament was moved in order to call attention of the House of the Colonial Government to the case, and in two days the men were liberated. Still they had to go on board the ship, and serve with the captain they believed to be incompetent. They were told that this measure, if applied to seamen, should be limited to the United Kingdom. But of what use would it be to seamen if that proposal were adopted? When a ship arrived in port there was no further use for the crew, they were paid and discharged, and they were not taken on again until the vessel was prepared to go abroad. The restriction of the Bill to the United Kingdom would mean that as soon as the three mile limit from the British coast was passed no liability would attach to the shipowner. He was glad the Government did not propose to make the Bill a sham by providing that it should only apply to seamen within the United Kingdom. There were, however, many accidents occurring against which the shipowners had no protection. The shipowners said they were obliged by law to protect the sailors, but that he denied. There was an Act which provided that a shipowner, before sending his vessel to sea, should make her seaworthy, and if he was guilty of sending her to sea in an unseaworthy condition, he was liable to be sent to prison. But the Act in no way provided for compensation for injuries that might be sustained by the men on board during a voyage. Actions bad been brought to obtain compensation for injuries, but the Courts had defined unseaworthiness in a very different way to the definition of the representatives of the men. Accidents occurred through the insufficient protection of machinery—as, for instance, through neglect to place guards over the cog-wheels of winches. A case had been brought to his notice in which a man had been serving on a steamer which was considered by the men undermanned. In getting the vessel under weigh one evening the man was sent to put a rope under the end of the winch. Owing to there not being sufficient men on board he was compelled to put on steam, drive the winch, and keep hold of the rope at the same time. In stooping to get hold of the ropes his fingers were dragged into the cogs, which were not protected by guards. In this case it could not he said that the ship was not seaworthy, as the owners would contend that they had the regular number of men on board; that was to say, the number which was usually carried by steamers of her tonnage, and there was no law that defined what was the number of men which vessels should carry. They would also contend that a guard not being over the cogs would in no way affect the seaworthiness of the vessel, and that, therefore, no compensation could be recovered. The injured man could not recover under Lord Campbell's Act, as it was only a case of injuries, and not of death. A case was brought under his notice a few days ago whore a seaman was injured under the following circumstances:—He was steering the vessel in heavy weather; the vessel was pitching and diving into a head sea. When this was the case it was very difficult for one man to hold the wheel where there was no steam stearing gear, as, owing to the wheel chains probably being slack, there was very great pressure on the rudder. He had known two men thrown over the wheel and injured under such circumstances. The steamer in question, being so short-handed, could only afford one man at the wheel. The vessel gave a heavy pitch and jerked the wheel out of the man's hand; the man was thrown against the cogs, with the result that half his hand was taken off. Had there been a guard on the cogs his hand would, in all probability, not have been injured. Now, in this case the owners were responsible. In the first place they should have allowed two men to be at the wheel in such stormy weather, and in the second place the cogs should have been covered with a guard. The injured man could not sue for compensation in this case, because the "Employers' Liability Act" did not apply. They could not sue on the ground that the vessel was unseaworthy, in consequence of undermanning, because the owners would no doubt get a sufficient number of captains to prove that she carried the usual number of hands for a vessel of her size, and, as he had already stated, the law did not define how many should be carried. The man could not sue for compensation on the grounds of defective equipment, because there was no law which entitled him to do so, and the owners would try to prove that it was one of the "perils of the sea," which he contended was altogether wrong. Under the "Employers' Liability Act" (if extended to seamen), they would be able to sue in such cases. The shipowners during the past four weeks had been very energetic in getting up Petitions to the House, in which they gave reasons why, in their opinion, this Bill should not apply to seamen. One of their ideas was this: "Owing to the floating and moving character of the shipowners' property upon which the men are employed, the ship is often and suddenly placed, by reason of fog, storm, snow, ice, and currents, or by reason of some accident or breakdown to hull or machinery, in various situations of the utmost difficulty and danger, such as are in their character, number, and variety practically unknown in the management of property on shore. Under these circumstances of sudden difficulty and danger serious mistakes and errors of judgment may be, and often are, committed by those on board ship, which, being brought before a sympathetic tribunal, would be construed into legal negligence, rendering the shipowner liable to enormous damages in many eases." He had known cases where, in foggy weather, the danger was not so much from the fog as to the desire of the captain to make speed. Two ships belonging to the same company sometimes left a certain port together, both bound for the United Kingdom. During their passage they met with foggy weather (and in these days of keen competition the owners always gave preference to captains who made the fastest passages). The Board of Trade Regulation, however, was that in foggy weather ships should only proceed at a certain rate of speed, so as to enable the officers to have proper control of the vessels. He had known cases where the position of the telegraph on the ship had been dead slow, whereas private instructions had been given to the engineer to give her full speed; and, as a proof, he had seen the firemen working away as hard as they could to keep up the steam. In the event of a collision and an inquiry being hold, the evidence given would be that the vessel was going slow. And why did captains do this? Simply because they knew that if the other ship got into port before they did the owners would take them to task and say, "The other vessel left at the same time as you did, and has arrived here two days earlier than you. If you cannot make a faster passage we will have to find someone else who can." And he contended that if the responsibility was put on the shoulders of the owners they would not drive their captains to risk the lives of the men as they did at the present time.

MR. CAYZER (Barrow-in-Furness)

Will the hon. Member give the cases he refers to?

MR. J. H. WILSON

If the hon. Member wants cases I can give him two or three hundred.

MR. CAYZER

I should be satisfied with one.

MR. J. H. WILSON

said, that if the hon. Member would apply to him privately he would give him any number of cases. He was referring to a class of steamers known as "tramps." Then the shipowners said— Owing to the fact of most of the casualties to shipping happening at sea, the effect of some act of neglect by a seaman (which is comparatively trifling in itself) is often to cause a large loss of life by drowning, thus obviously making the responsibility in such case of the shipowner enormously greater than that of the employers on shore. Further on they said— The pecuniary responsibility of shipowners under this intended Act will be enormous, amounting in the case of the total loss of large vessels, with all or nearly all hands, to upwards of £100,000, and proportionately for vessels of smaller size, and this, in many cases, by reason of some trifling negligence which the shipowner can do absolutely nothing to guard himself against. Large vessels carrying 300 or 400 hands were referred to as throwing enormous responsibility on the shipowners. But it must be remembered that vessels of the size of the New York and the Paris were by no means numerous, and that most of the vessels were of the tramp class, carrying only 15 or 20 hands. The majority of the vessels engaged in the passenger traffic did not carry more than 120 hands. Therefore, the responsibility of the shipowners would not be so great as they would like to make out. He was certain, however, if their responsibility was increased, there would not be so many lives lost as there were at the present time. The shipowners in their petition said— Seamen have many privileges and pecuniary advantages granted in consequence of the special character and risk of their employment not enjoyed by workmen on shore. What were these privileges? The first one quoted was— Medical and surgical attendance free of cost during voyage. But none of the smaller vessels carried doctors. The only vessels that carried medical men were the great passenger vessels, and he ventured to say that there was not one captain out of 20 who could set about or dress a wound. He would be able to understand that there would be something in the claim as to surgical attendance if the shipowners only required their captains to go through a course of ambulance lessons. The shipowners next said the men received hospital expenses, but that was nothing to the credit of the shipowners, the hospitals as a rule being maintained by voluntary contributions; then as to the statement that the shipowners defrayed "funeral expenses in case of death during voyage," it was certainly a great consolation to a man to know that in case of death at sea the shipowner would put himself to the enormous expense of having him sewn up in two yards of canvas with a fire-bar worth about 3d. at his feet, and thrown overboard. If the man died in a foreign port, it would not be the shipowner who would be put to the expense of his interment. Whatever was due to the dead man in the shape of wages would be taken to defray the funeral expenses. The shipowner, he contended, had no more right to be exempted from the provisions of this Bill than any other employer. He was not prepared to admit the claim of the shipowner that so many accidents which took place on board ship occurred through "the act of God." It was not an "act of God" to tell the engineer privately to put on full steam whilst the engine-room indicator below registered "slow." Such a proceeding was clearly the act of the shipowner or his representative to get the ship to go faster than she ought to go. He did not wish the House to believe that he was making a general charge against all shipowners, because he was not. He was making a charge against a certain class of men who were not shipowners, but shipmongers, who managed other people's property and tried to get as much out of it as they could at the risk of the lives and limbs of the men who sailed on board the vessels. Ship owners should be held responsible for the overloading of their ships in foreign ports. A captain had told him a short time ago that his employer was in the habit of sending him his instructions in a letter, and pinning to that letter a separate piece of paper with the direction on it that he must take in as much cargo as ever he could. "Mind you fill her up—put plenty into her," was the instruction, which clearly meant that the vessel was to be overloaded. If the instruction was not obeyed, when the captain returned with his ship he would be met with the reproach, "Oh! Captain So-and-so used to take so much more cargo than you," and then he would be told, "We have no further use for your services." It was said that the shipowner would experience difficulty in getting evidence when compensation was claimed under the Act. But surely that difficulty would be much greater on the part of the men. The captains and mates never deserted their ships abroad, but the sailors and firemen very often did, as they objected to being starved and having their lives endangered. Furthermore, when a ship arrived in the United Kingdom, she might touch at several ports, and the men might be paid off in London and Glasgow and scattered about, so that it would be impossible to collect them for the purpose of giving evidence. He had no objection to a time being fixed within which a seaman must give notice of action. He would suggest that it ought to be within the power of a seaman to give his notice abroad—say, to the British Consul. It might be said that if a ship foundered and all on board were lost except three, the three might conspire to set up a plea that the loss of the ship had been due to the captain's negligence. He had had much experience of Board of Trade inquiries, and he did not believe that during the last 15 years there had been more than two cases in which the Board of Trade had decided that a ship was lost through the fault of the captain. He did not, however, believe that there had not been many cases in which ships had sunk through the negligence of the owner or the captain, and he regarded the Board of Trade inquiries as bogus inquiries. The shipowners wore, in his opinion, setting up a very weak case on this point. Was it possible to imagine that if three men went into Court in persuance of an arrangement to tell one straight story, they would not break down when subjected to searching cross-examination by a skilful lawyer? Sailors did not make the very best witnesses, and the conspiracy dodge would not be successful. With reference to the Amendment of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), there was a time when the sailors of the country looked upon the right hon. Gentleman as "the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft and keeps watch o'er the life of poor Jack." A change, however, had set in, and the right hon. Gentleman never referred to the sailors now. He (Mr. Wilson) remembered reading with great pleasure a speech made by the right hon. Gentleman in 1883, in which he attacked the shipowners in a very savage manner, and told them a good deal that was very proper and some things that were very exaggerated. That speech did more to put a stop to the loss of life at sea than had been done for a great many years. Ever since that speech was delivered the loss of life at sea had gone down considerably. The right hon. Gentleman said that the only way in which the lives of seamen could be protected was by throwing a certain amount of responsibility upon owners of ships. He said, also, that shipowners made a profit out of the loss of their vessels. That was perfectly true at that time, and it was true now. The right hon. Gentleman now proposed that there should be an insurance scheme, and that the employers should insure against accidents. This was what his Amendment really meant. He (Mr. Wilson) could see great dangers in connection with such a scheme. For instance, it would mean that the good employer who took every precaution to conduct his business with due regard to the safety of the men he employed would have to be taxed to pay for the damage done by the bad employer. The right hon. Gentleman said the Bill contained more pitfalls than the present Act. Would the Amendment remove these pitfalls? The employer was to pay compensation for all accidents except those in which the workman was himself to blame. Of course, the workman would have to prove his case in a Court of Law. He would have to employ a solicitor, who would have to call in a Queen's Counsel —because one could not work without the other, the legal profession being in this respect one of the best Trades Unions in the country. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not get much support from Members who called themselves the friends of the working man. It was not money the working men wanted, but protection for their lives and limbs. They wished to be placed upon the same level as ordinary citizens, and he hoped that the House would not accept any Amendment which would leave them in a worse position than any other workman.

SIR THOMAS SUTHERLAND (Greenock)

said, nobody could welcome the hon. Member who had just sat down to the House of Commons as a representative of the seamen more than did the shipowners. He must, however, express his regret that the hon. Member had not made the somewhat harrowing statements to which he had just given utterance before the Committee of 1886, where he could have been cross-examined.

MR. J. WILSON

I gave evidence before the Committee of 1885.

SIR THOMAS SUTHERLAND

said, he was perfectly aware of that; but whereas the statements the hon. Member has made now were of that broadest possible character the statements he made before the Select Committee in 1886 were of the most slender character. As a Member of that Committee, he (Sir T. Sutherland) must express his great regret that a measure to amend the Employers' Liability Act of 1880 had not long since become the law of the land. The late Government introduced a Bill on the subject in 1888. That Bill was, in his opinion, of an extremely honest character, because it proceeded strictly upon the lines of the Report made by the Select Committee. If that Bill had not been—he would not say obstructed, because that was a except word which one never used under the greatest provocation—if it had not been too elaborately discussed, and had been allowed to go before a Grand Committee, he felt certain that it would have emerged from that Committee as a most useful and valuable measure. The present Government had, for reasons which no doubt were satisfactory to themselves, completely and entirely thrown overboard the recommendations of the Select Committee of 1886. That Committee was presided over by Lord Brassey, whose well-known sympathies with working men certainly ensured that the direction and tendency of the Committee's Report would not be unfavourable to the working men. The Government had, however, thrown the Report overboard in order to please a certain section of the Trades Unionists. The opinions of the representatives of these Trades Unions were not upheld by the evidence given before the Committee, and many Members would remember that during the discussions on the Bill of 1888 the late Mr. Bradlaugh absolutely pulverised Mr. Broadhurst when the latter brought forward the views of these Trades Unionists on the matter. Notwithstanding the intentions of the Government, he believed the measure would scarcely meet the views of the more advanced section of Trades Unionists whose ideas and policy would, he believed, in the future approach very nearly to those enunciated by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. However, he (Sir T. Sutherland) did not think the views of that right hon. Gentleman were consistent with the spirit of the Act of 1880. The intention of that Act was not to penalise employers, or place unnecessary burdens on them, or to discourage enterprise, but to guard against the negligence of employers, to protect workmen from the meanness of the employer, and to ensure a vigilant supervision with the object of securing the utmost possible safety for the men. That being so, whilst he could not regard the Amendment of his right hon. Friend with favour, he regretted that the Government had not adhered somewhat more closely to the recommendations of the Committee. At the same time, he was willing to admit that in perhaps one or two of the proposals they had made they were justified and, indeed, entitled to praise. For example, he did not quarrel with the principle they had adopted in the Bill for the settlement of questions arising out of what was called "common employment." He did not quarrel with that, although he regarded the principle as one manifestly unfair to the employer. Everybody, of course, knew what common employment meant. It meant that the workman in an employer's service should be in the same position with regard to claim for compensation as an outsider in the event of an accident occurring. The admission of that doctrine was not altogether fair to the employer, and he could quote innumerable cases in proof of that assertion. Only the other day, as some coal was being lowered in buckets through a ventilator, into the stokehole of a ship, a heavy piece fell out of a bucket, and at that very moment an unfortunate man happened to pass under the ventilator, with the result, of course, that his skull was smashed. Under the Bill they were now considering that accident would inevitably be held by a jury to come under the doctrine of common employment, yet he would defy anyone to show that the accident would have been prevented by the employer whatever precautions he had taken, or whatever amount of expenditure he had incurred. Although he thought that common employment under the Bill would operate unfairly to the employer, he admitted, as a mere question of practical expediency in getting a measure of this kind passed through the House, it was advisable to adopt it, or something like it, because by so doing they would satisfy a sentimental idea on the part of Trades Unions, and put an end to what was undoubtedly an agitation with regard to that particular matter. Although he held that the adoption of the new principle was unfair to employers, he did not think that in the long run this part of the Bill would involve great, or serious, or practical burden or risk so far as regards the employer's interest. When he came to another principle the Government bad adopted, he found himself entirely at issue with them—he referred to the principle of contracting out of the Act. Here he was at issue with them, because it was shown by the clearest evidence before the Committee that the utmost possible benefit had accrued to workmen in connection with the funds which had been mutually established between employers and employed. It was shown, however, that only had the existence of these funds profited the workmen from a financial point of view, but that it had induced a mutual good understanding, which had been of the greatest possible advantage. It had induced a system of benevolent co-operation between employers and employed in the establishment of funds, to which in a vast number of cases employers had contributed in no niggardly degree. The policy of the Bill was to break up benevolent arrangements already in existence, the advantages of which had been proved before the Select Committee of 1886. It would break up existing funds, and prevent any such arrangement between employers and employed coming into existence in the future; it was a policy which put the working man in manacles, which told him that he did not know his own interests, and that he was incapable, with all the assistance that was given him by his Unions, of looking after himself. It was tolerably well-known that he himself had had something to do with the employment of labour, and it might, perhaps, be supposed that he had some direct or indirect interest in the existence of the arrangements which this Bill would certainly eventually destroy. But that was not so. In the service of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, with which he was associated, there was no accident or benevolent fund, and every workman was under the operation of the Employers' Liability Act, which the country did not insure against. But he would venture to quote from his experience in connection with a fund of a different kind to show how these arrangements between employer and employed might prove of the utmost benefit to all concerned. Before the Employers' Liability Act was passed there was established for a limited portion of the Peninsular and Oriental service— the less fluctuating part of it—a life insurance fund, towards which the company undertook to contribute one-half the premiums year by year, paying the total amount into an insurance office, and recovering contributions from officers and engineers from month to month in the shape most convenient to them. There bad been already paid £200,000 on the deaths of contributors, and there was an equal, if not larger, sum standing to the credit of the men in the service of the company at the present time. With the evidence given before the Select Committee, and with the evidence of his own experience, he said that the Government were making a great mistake in discouraging voluntary co-operation between masters and workmen for benevolent purposes, and the discouragement of voluntary association between them would be the certain result of the Bill as it stood. The Select Committee, after examining the evidence in the most exhaustive manner, came to the conclusion that undoubtedly such co-operation ought not to be prevented or hindered, and that in the interests of the workmen menus should be found of securing for the workman a quid pro quo for his contributions. He understood the Home Secretary to say the other day that he had declined to introduce that principle into the Bill because of the enormous difficulty which would beset any Government Department in attempting to form an adequate judgment upon such a question. He did not suggest that the task was an easy one, or by any means free from difficulty. At the outset of the Committee's inquiry, he was strongly opposed to any permission to contract out of the Act; but, after hearing the evidence on both sides, he ultimately arrived at the conclusion that it was not only politic, but necessary, that men should have the power of being their own masters in matters of this kind. He arrived, too, at the conclusion that, difficult as it might be—and the Home Secretary seemed to say it was impossible—yet, if half a dozen of them sat down to discuss the value of existing arrangements, such as those which obtained on some of our large railways, they would be able to determine whether or not the working man had a quid pro quo; and having determined that fact in regard to cases actually existing, an equal number of business men would be able to lay down some general principle which would enable employers and employed to know upon what terms they could in future enter into such arrangements. He said distinctly, and from the point of view of the interests of the workmen, and not at all from the point of view of the employer, that the Bill of the late Government was decidedly superior in this respect to the Bill before the House. Now he came more particularly to that part of the question with which he might be supposed to have greater familiarity —he came to the application of the Bill to seamen, a subject dealt with very fully by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough. The first observation he had to make with regard to the language of the Bill on this subject was that the wording, so far as it had reference to seamen, appeared to him in principle greatly at variance with the wording as to workpeople in general. The word used was "seamen," and that was to be taken as including every one employed on a ship. This comprehensive word "seamen" included, therefore, captains and officers, men whose income varied from £300 to perhaps £1,000 a year. Thus there was an enormous inconsistency in the Bill, because, when it referred to workmen, it was limited in its character. It did not include foremen, clerks, superintendents, or managers, although this class of men only received about half the pay of commanders and engineers on board large steam vessels. Surely, then, it was necessary to put some interpretation upon the word "seamen." That might appear a mere detail which could, no doubt, be attended to in Committee. But the fact remained that the Government had made a great departure from the recommendation of the Select Committee of 1886 with regard to the extension of the Act to seamen. He believed he was right in stating that there were one or two Members of the Committee who were practical seamen. Most assuredly Lord Brassey was one of them, and, after hearing all the evidence, including that of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, they came to the unanimous conclusion that owners of ships should be only held responsible for accidents under the Employers' Liability Act when those accidents occurred in home ports, or when they could be traced to defective equipment. The intention of the Act of 1880 was not to penalise employers, but to ensure that everything that was humanly possible for the employer to do should be done by him in order to secure the safety of life. Under these circumstances, it appeared almost ridiculous for hon. Members to come there and suggest that there was some analogy between the owner of mines and the owner of ships, in so far as the possibility of protecting life was concerned. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough drew a comparison between Lord Londonderry as a mine owner and the owner of a ship. But the analogy did not hold good. If Lord Londonderry's mines could be sent to sea for a certain number of months every year the analogy might apply, but there was nothing to prevent any owner from living in his mine when he chose. But he did not wish to labour the point; he only wished to show the application of the ideas of the Select Committee of 1886. He would take for example the case of a modern steamer engaged in trade between this country and Australia. In the course of a year that vessel would probably cover a distance of something like 70,000 nautical miles, and her stay in home ports of the United Kingdom would in that period be limited to 10 or 12 weeks. Therefore, for 40 weeks she would be absolutely out of the knowledge, and certainly out of the practical care, of the shipowners. The Select Committee of 1886 said that when a ship was in port the owner should be responsible in the same way as the owner of a mine for any accident or damage; but that when the ship was away he should only be responsible in the case where it could be shown the equipment was faulty. But this Bill involved an entirely different responsibility. It threw it upon the shipowner, when no care and no expenditure on his part, however great, could provide against the accident. He would quote a popular example—the case of a vessel shipwrecked. In the great majority of cases with which he was acquainted, shipwrecks had occurred through some temporary act of negligence on the part of most experienced officers—men holding the highest certificates, both of service and of merit. They had occurred from some momentary error of judgment or some casual absence of caution, due perhaps to the fact that the officers in charge had navigated the same coasts so frequently. He could give many instances illustrative of this fact; but he would quote only one. It was the case of a new vessel in the Peninsular and Oriental Line, making her first voyage from China to Bombay. When off the Malabar coast, at a time when the captain on the bridge was looking out for the Bombay Lighthouse, the vessel went on shore and became a perfect wreck. It was light, or rather twilight, and the coast was distinctly visible. The captain had been 30 years navigating that coast; but some peculiarity in the condition of the atmosphere prevented him from accurately judging the distance of his vessel from the shore. Now, that accident, and many other accidents of the same kind, involving as they had unhappily done great loss of life, could not have been prevented by any care or forethought or liberality of expenditure on the part of the owners. In the views he was expressing on this point he was not actuated entirely by zeal for the shipowners. The loss of life in our Mercantile Marine at the present time was happily small in proportion to the business done. It had in the last few years declined enormously. But this Bill cast on shipowners an unfair responsibility; it was entirely inconsistent with the Act of 1880 and with the unanimous recommendations of the Select Committee of 1886. It would, if it were passed, be followed by universal insurance on the part of the shipowners, and the cost of that insurance would, sooner or later—a part of it at any rate, if not the entire expense—fall upon the wages of the seamen. He contended that if this new unfair responsibility was put upon the shoulders of the shipowner it would not benefit the seamen, and it would give the finishing stroke to what he might call the smaller class of shipowner. He believed he might appeal to the fair sense of the House, that in view of the circumstances and the conditions of this Bill, he had not said a single unnecessary word in support of his argument. He, however, took the view which so many hon. Members of the House took, that it was desirable by every possible means to facilitate the Business of the House, and, therefore, he would not attempt further criticisms on other important points to which, if the time had afforded, he would have been glad to call attention. He hoped these matters might be dealt with more effectually in Committee.

Mr. James Bow lands rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

MR. SPEAKER

The Debate has occupied only a short time, and I cannot put such a Motion unless hon. Members who wish to speak are content to waive their speeches.

Debate resumed.

MR. PROVAND (Glasgow, Blackfriars)

said, that if a workman had to go to the High Court to recover over £100 under this Act, then the whole of the amount he would receive as compensation would go into the pockets of the lawyers. He also wished to draw attention to the inadequate description of those to whom the Bill would apply. He further desired to notice Clause 8, which applied to Scotland. At the present time they had not in Scotland the power of trying actions under the Employers' Liability Act by a jury; and this clause in the Bill did not give the power. He hoped the Home Secretary would see that this defect was remedied.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH,) Fife, E.

I have stated that the matter will be attended to in Committee.

MR. PROVAND

said, he had not heard or read any statement to that effect by the Home Secretary. If the right hon. Gentleman had taken counsel of persons in Scotland who had a knowledge of the subject, they would have told him that actions under the present Act were so costly that it was almost impossible for a workman to recover anything at all. He protested against a Bill of this kind being rushed through the House in this way. This was one of the most important Bills that had been brought before the House this Session. It was a Bill they ought to have had time to discuss. They had only had three scraps of evenings given to it. To-night they were to have it closured by consent, he supposed it might be called. It was impossible to consider the Bill under the circumstances. It ought to be put down as a first Order, and then, no doubt, a Second Reading would be got after a single night's Debate. He protested against it, and when the Bill came before Committee there ought to be every latitude permitted to those who desired to speak upon it.

MR. SETON-KARR (St. Helen's)

said, he heartily endorsed the remarks of the hon. Member who had just sat down, and was very glad to find sitting behind the Government one hon. Member who had a certain amount of independence of spirit to protest against a measure like this being rushed through the House of Commons. The Government would not succeed in rushing through the Second Reading that night. This was, in his opinion, the only sound and beneficial measure which the Government had introduced, with the exception of the Bill to regulate the hours of railway servants, and now that the Government had the whole of the time of the House at their disposal he hoped they would allow plenty of time for the consideration of the measure. He congratulated the Government on introducing the Bill, for by the Bill they had for the first time since their accession to Office justified their existence as a Liberal Government. He desired to support the principle of the Bill and also the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. No intimation had been given by the Government with regard to the Amendment, and he wished now to ask the Government what their attitude was towards it. The Homo Secretary, in his speech introducing the Bill and before hearing the arguments on the Amendment, said that he was opposed to it because it introduced the principle of industrial insurance, and he also said that it would be taking away from the employer an incentive to take proper precautions against accident. He wished to point out to the Home Secretary that in his Bill he had answered that argument, inasmuch as the abolition of the doctrine of common employment—one of the most important principles of the measure—would make a wholesale system of industrial insurance a necessity, because the employer would not otherwise be able to face the liability which would be imposed on him. Those who were criticising the provisions of the Bill wore assisting the Government. Accidents in mines caused by the negligence of one workman in which two or three hundred men were killed or injured were unfortunately rather common. The employer under the existing law was not liable for an accident of that kind; but by the abolition, of the doctrine of common employment he would be liable in future in such an accident for an enormous amount of damages, which he could not possibly meet except under a system of industrial insurance. Another argument in favour of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham is that it would provide not for 40 or 50 per cent., but for 80 or 90 per cent. of the accidents which occur. They were not going to assist merely by sitting silent. Had it not been for the action of those who now sat on the Government Benches the amending Act would have been passed in 1888, and the working men would have been enjoying the advantages of it for four years already. The late Government tried to amend the existing Act by modifying the doctrine of common employment in favour of the working man, and by preventing contracting out except in cases exempted by the arbitration of the Board of Trade. [Cries of "Divide, divide! "] He was going on till he had done. The Home Secretary had said that if the Amendment were accepted there would be no incentive to employers to exercise due care and vigilance for the prevention of accidents. Did they look upon an employer of labour as an inhuman monster or as an ordinary individual subject to ordinary feelings and sentiments? Surely the fact that a man was employing a large number of workers in factory or mine, and desired them to labour in safety, was a sufficient incentive to him to take precautions that they should not be injured? But supposing the employer was the inhuman monster the Home Secretary would have the House to believe, the abolition of the doctrine of common employment—which meant the worker was insured against all accidents—would be sufficient to induce him to take the greatest possible care to prevent accidents.

Mr. Grove rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

MR. SPEAKER

A quarter of an hour ago I expressed the view that if the Debate is closed to-night it must be by mutual arrangement.

Debate resumed.

MR. SETON-KARR

said that, so far as he was concerned, he could not consent to such an arrangement, as there were several hon. Members around him who desired to speak. Nearly every Member who had taken part in the Debate had spoken from the other side of the House. He did not understand the action of the Government in regard to this question of employers' liability. If they were going to do away with the doctrine of common employment they should make their Bill cover accidents of every kind. With regard to contracting out, if he understood the Home Secretary aright——

Mr. Diamond rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

MR. SPEAKER

I said a few minutes ago that if the Debate is to be closed to-night it must be by mutual consent. If I am given to understand that there are a large number of hon. Members desiring to speak on both sides of the House—if that is the case, then the Debate must go on. If hon. Members can deny themselves the right to speak, or defer it, the Debate may be brought to a close to-night.

MR. SETON-KARR (resuming his speech)

said, this was a question of great importance to him, as he represented 9,000 workers in his constituency and had had a great deal of correspondence with them about the Bill. Hon. Members on the other side had not a monopoly of the representation of the working classes. In his constituency large numbers of workers were members of Insurance Societies to which the employers subscribed, and he had had a letter from the secretary of one of these Societies, consisting of 10,000 members, stating that the men desired to be left as they were, and did not want any change made which would jeopardise their Insurance Societies.

It being Midnight, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Monday, 10th April.