gence which caused his injury, and failed within a reasonable time to give, or cause to be given, information of it to the employer or some person superior to himself in the service of the employer, unless he was aware that the employer of such superior already knew of the defect or negligence.

Maximum Compensation. The amount of compensation recoverable under the Act by Section 3 is not to exceed the estimated earnings, during the three years preceding the injury, of a person in the same grade employed during those years in the like employment and in the district in which the workman is employed at the time of the injury.

Notice of Claim, etc.-An employer is liable to be prejudiced in meeting a claim for injuries made against him by a workman if he does not have early notice of the fact of injury. The recollection of what actually happened becomes dim and confused, and the persons concerned may have left the employment. While this is certainly so, on the other hand it is equally true that in many cases the seriousness of the accident calls the attention of the master at once to the circumstances, and there is no real need for any formal notice of the accident at all apart from the initial steps of the actual legal proceedings. There should be therefore a certain elasticity in the necessary provisions as to notice of claims. Unfortunately the Act of 1880, being the first attempt at this kind of legislation, is much too rigid in its provisions, with the result that many claims have been defeated on purely technical grounds. Its provisions should be contrasted with those contained in the Workmen's Compensation Act (p. 116). Under Section 4 an action for the recovery of compensation under the Act is not maintainable unless notice that injury has been sustained is given within six weeks, and the action is commenced within six months from the occurrence of the accident, or in case of death, within twelve months from the time of death. The only exception is that in the case of death the want of notice shall be no bar to the maintenance of the action if the judge is of opinion that there was reasonable excuse for the want of notice. Under Section 7 the notice that injury has been sustained must be a written notice, and must

state in ordinary language the cause of the injury and the date at which it was sustained, and must be duly served on the employer, either by delivery at his residence or place of business, or by sending it to him in a registered letter.

A judge has no power to excuse failure to give notice within the six weeks, but he can treat a notice as valid in spite of defects and inaccuracies unless he is of opinion that the employer is prejudiced in his defence by the defect or inaccuracy, or that the defect or inaccuracy was for the purpose of misleading.

Proceedings for the recovery of compensation are to be brought in a County Court (Section 6).

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACTS, 1897 AND 1906

So far as accidents arising from negligence are concerned, the Employers' Liability Act fairly covered the ground, and within the limit of three years' wages the whole burden of the workman's loss fell on the employer. But the Act made no provision for injuries resulting from accidents in which there was either no element of negligence, or none that could be fairly attributable to the master. As we have seen, these accidents are very numerous, may be regarded as largely inevitable, and as ordinary incidents of modern industrial methods, and yet the whole burden of them was borne by the injured workman. In 1897 it was recognised that the burden might to some extent be considered a cost of production and be borne partially by the employer, and the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897, was accordingly passed, embodying that principle, and applying it experimentally to such sections of industry as exposed workers to the greatest risks of accident. It applied to employment in or about a railway, factory, mine, quarry, or engineering work, and certain building operations. The Act was valuable as an experiment, but the line of demarcation adopted by it was not a happy one, and in 1906 it was replaced by an Act based on the same principles but of a much wider scope, namely, the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906. A study of the definitions contained in the various statutes

making up industrial legislation before this date shows that this legislation was almost entirely confined to manual labour. Industry is mainly dependent on manual labour, but to confine the use of that word to the operations of manual workers would be considered unduly narrow, and industrial legislation which protected no one but manual workers is necessarily incomplete. The Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, was the first important statute to recognise this, and to provide for the protection of the industrial classes as a whole. In this respect it has been followed by the National Insurance Act, 1911, Part I. From 1906 onwards the phrase 'industrial legislation' acquires a new meaning.

The details of the Act of 1906 require careful attention. Persons included under the Act of 1906.-With certain exceptions, the Act includes within its scope "any person who has entered into or works under a contract of service or apprenticeship with an employer, whether by way of manual labour, clerical work, or otherwise, and whether the contract is expressed or implied, is oral or in writing."

The exceptions fall into five classes: (a) Any person employed otherwise than by way of manual labour whose remuneration exceeds £250 a year; (b) a person whose employment is of a casual nature, and who is employed otherwise than for the purposes of the employer's trade or business; (c) a member of the police force; (d) an outworker, meaning by that term a person to whom articles or materials are given out to be made up, cleaned, washed, altered, ornamented, finished, or repaired, or adapted for sale in his own home or on other premises not under the control or management of the person who gave out the materials or articles; (e) a member of the employer's family dwelling in his house (Section 13).

These exceptions do not require explanation, but it should be carefully noted that under (b) the worker is only excluded if both conditions are satisfied. It is not enough that he is a casual worker, he must also be employed for some non-trade or non-business purpose. The most striking instance of casual labour coming within the Act which the

writer can recall was as follows: A workman was on his way home from work in the middle of the day when he was asked by the foreman on a building contract to lend a hand for a few minutes in getting a girder from the road into the building, and remuneration of some sort was promised him. The man agreed to help, and while giving it the girder slipped and fell on his foot, incapacitating him from work for some time. No employment could very well have been of a more casual nature, but as it was for the purposes of the builder's business, the injured man was certainly not shut out from the benefit of the Act.

Basis of Claim.-As has already been indicated, the basis of a claim is not the negligence of the employer or of his servants, but the fact that "personal injury by accident, arising out of and in the course of the employment, is caused to a workman" (Section 1). The terms of this clause have given rise to a very large number of legal decisions, but before dealing with the interpretation of the clause in the light of those decisions as shortly as practicable, it will be simplest to record the two classes of injuries which are exceptions.

Excepted Injuries.-(a) Injuries which do not disable the workman for a period of at least one week from earning full wages at the work at which he was employed [Section 1 (2) (a)].

(b) Injuries proved to be attributable to the serious and wilful misconduct of the workman himself, and not resulting in death or serious and permanent disablement [Section I (2) (c)].

These exceptions are attempts to distribute the burden of accidents fairly between employer and workman from a social point of view, there being by hypothesis no existing legal liability on the master to pay compensation. In the first case (the accident of slight duration), we must bear in mind that a five days' absence means that on no pay-day will the workman be absolutely without wages, and, if the workman has any reserve at all, that he cannot be seriously inconvenienced. De minimis, lex non curat.' About very little things the law does not care. We may compare with

this the three days' waiting period under Part I. of the National Insurance Act and the six days' waiting period under Part II. of the same Act.

As regards the effect of serious and wilful misconduct, by which is meant something more grave than negligence, the underlying thought seems to be that where the disablement is not serious and permanent, the total loss of wages is a fair punishment for the man's behaviour, but where serious and permanent disablement ensues, the loss of the half wages that the workman in any case suffers is a sufficient punishment without further addition. Moreover, in the case of accidents with serious consequences the man may be well looked after in a hospital or infirmary, while the hardship is being borne by his innocent family. It is impossible to lay down briefly any very useful interpretation of serious and wilful misconduct, but one judge has said that it must be at least an act for which immediate dismissal would be justifiable.

There are two phrases in the basis of claim which are of the utmost importance in construing its meaning, the words 'injury by accident' and the phrase 'arising out of and in the course of the employment.' There have been many cases decided on these points, and it would be beyond the scope of this book to examine them with any minuteness, but it may be helpful to indicate broadly the accepted construction to be put upon them.

Meaning of Accident.—An injury by accident is an injury which occurs fortuitously and unexpectedly, and though it usually results in some external injury, yet it also covers internal injuries. Thus a rupture caused by lifting heavy planks or turning the wheel of a machine may be an injury by accident.

It has also been held that sunstroke incurred in painting the side of a ship is an accident. But diseases which develop gradually, and of which the moment of attack cannot be defined, are not accidents. Thus a man who was working in sewer gas and who developed enteritis was not allowed compensation as for an accident. So also a man who proved that he was suffering from a strained heart, not