partially insured), the workman may prove for the balance in the bankruptcy or liquidation.

In the second place, there remains the case of the injured workman whose employer was not insured and has become bankrupt. If such an employer owes wages and salaries to his workmen and clerks, the law of bankruptcy gives them a right to be paid up to a certain limit in priority to ordinary creditors. The claim for compensation can fairly be said to be analogous to a claim for wages or salary, and the Act accordingly provides that where the employer has not entered into any such contract with insurers as has already been dealt with, the amount, not exceeding in any individual case £100, due in respect of any compensation under the Act, is to be included amongst the debts which, in the distribution of the property of a bankrupt and in the distribution of the assets of a company being wound up, are to be paid in priority to all other debts.

Remedy against both Employer and Stranger.—It may happen that an accident arising out of and in the course of the servant's employment has been caused by the negligence of some third person under circumstances which create a legal liability in some person other than the employer to pay damages in respect of it. Thus a chauffeur and his employer driving in one motor-car may be injured by a collision with another motor-car due to the negligent driving of the latter car. If the employer can get damages against the person responsible for the negligence, so also can the chauffeur. But the chauffeur, being injured in his master's service, can if he please claim compensation under the Act of 1906. The Act (Section 6) preserves the workman's double claim, but he is not entitled to recover both legal damages and compensation under the Act of 1906. If he prefers to take the compensation, then the person by whom the compensation is paid is entitled to be indemnified by the person liable to pay legal damages.

Application to Workmen in the Employment of the Crown. The Act does not apply to persons in the naval or military service of the Crown, but it does apply to persons employed in Government factories and workshops or royal

establishments, and generally to workmen employed by or under the Crown, to whom the Act would apply if the employer were a private person (Section 9).

Obligation to make Returns.-Under Section 12 of the Act every employer in any industry to which the Secretary of State may direct that the section is to apply, must, on or before such day in every year as the Secretary of State may direct, send to the Secretary of State a correct return, specifying the number of injuries in respect of which compensation has been paid by him under the Act during the previous year, and the amount of such compensation, together with such other particulars as to the compensation as the Secretary of State may direct.

The present regulations as to these returns are contained in S. R. and O., 1913, No. 1092, and are set out in Appendix III.

Statistics.—The following statistics as to the operation of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, and the Employers' Liability Act during the year 1913 are taken from a Home Office return (Cd. 7, 669).

In the seven industries of shipping, factories, docks, mines, quarries, constructional work, and railways, a gross total of 7,509,353 persons were employed, and amongst these in the year 1913 there were 3748 fatal cases of accident and 476,920 non-fatal cases, and the total compensation paid amounted to £3,361,650.

The amount of compensation per person employed per annum was very unevenly distributed amongst these industries. For all the industries together the amount was 8s. IId. Arranged by industry and in order, the figures are as follows: mines, 24s. 3d.; docks, 24s.; shipping, 15s. 2d. ; constructional work, 13s. 3d.; quarries, 10s. 2d.; railways, 8s. 5d.; factories, 5s.

Individual employers do not as a rule bear the risk of accident, but insure their liability with an Employers Association, a Mutual Indemnity Society, or an Insurance Company. The cost of administration is apparently about 50 per cent on the compensation paid, so that the total charge upon the seven industries was not less than £5,000,000.

In over 91 per cent of the cases compensation was payable for two weeks or over, so that in these cases compensation was payable for the whole duration of the incapacity (see p. 118). About 5 per cent of the cases involved disablement for over three months, and about 1 per cent disablement for over six months.

Out of the 476,920 non-fatal cases, 28,330 received a lump sum by way of settlement. In 15,305 cases the lump sum was accepted as full compensation, and no weekly payments were made. Of the balance, 7985 voluntarily agreed to commutation before the six months of weekly payments had expired, while 5040 cases were commuted after that period had expired. Only a very small proportion of these 5040 cases were actually settled by arbitration. (The total number of awards of lump sums by the Courts in all occupations was 346.)

These 13,025 cases of redemption of weekly payments required registration in the County Courts as a condition of their validity (see p. 119), but only 9953 of them were so registered.

The figures for industrial diseases are as follows: fatal cases, 27; disablement cases, 8233. At the end of 1913 there were 1514 cases which had been disabled for more than one year. The total compensation paid to the disabled work-people was £130,251, of which £113,203 was paid to miners; and mining accounts for 1405 out of the 1514 cases which had been disabled for more than a year. The chief mining diseases are nystagmus, beat hand, and beat knee. In spite of these figures and the high figure already given for the compensation of miners per person employed per annum, the charge arising under the Act works out at only just over one penny per ton of coal raised. There were 569 cases due to lead-poisoning; 221 of these arose in the engineering and metal trades, 148 in the china and earthenware industry, and most of the others apparently in house-painting.

Attention was called on p. 108 to the inclusion in the Act of non-manual workers, menial servants, etc. The extent to which the Act has been of benefit to these classes of workers cannot be gauged with anything like the same

accuracy as in the case of the seven industries which make returns, but the figures as to cases taken into Court throw some light on this point. Out of a total of 13,208 persons who took their cases into Court, 40 were in professional employments and 43 in commercial occupations; 232 were shop-assistants and 576 domestic servants; 693 were engaged in inland transport by road (other than railways).

Actions under the Employers' Liability Act are somewhat rapidly decreasing. In the period 1898-1906, in which the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897, was in force, the number of actions averaged roughly 700 per annum. In the next four years the number dropped to just over 200. In 1913 the number was 171, the smallest on record, and only 62 of these actions actually went to a hearing.

It has already been noticed (p. 117) that in the Workmen's Compensation Act special care has been taken to keep down legal costs. In 1913 the average amount of solicitors' costs was £20 9s. 3d. under the Employers' Liability Act, and £10 18s. 8d. under the Workmen's Compensation Act.

CHAPTER IX

THE DEFINITIONS OF THE FACTORY ACTS, MINES ACTS,

AND SHOPS ACT

THE main classifications of the Factory Acts1 are into factories and workshops, and into textile and non-textile factories, but the lines of demarcation are very confusing. They are historical in origin, and Chapter XVII. is devoted to a short history of factory legislation, and a perusal of that chapter is necessary for an intelligent appreciation of certain distinctions which on the surface may appear arbitrary and meaningless. The present chapter is mainly an attempt to present the classifications of the Factory Acts in as simple a form as possible. Certain other definitions have also been inserted.

Factory legislation was originally confined to places where machinery worked by steam, water, or other mechanical power was in use. This is still the basis of the distinction between factories and workshops, but the works in which certain non-textile trades are carried on are treated as factories, irrespective of the character of the motive power in use. The term factory is not directly defined in the Act, but only in conjunction with the words textile and nontextile.

Textile Factories.-Under Section 149 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, the term 'textile factory' means any premises wherein steam, water, or other mechanical

1 The main Factory Act in force is the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901. This has been slightly amended by the Factory and Workshop Act, 1907. References are to the Act of 1901 unless the contrary is

indicated.