after the award. It may be increased or decreased according as the injury is more or less serious than was first anticipated.

Workmen whose annual salary is 2000 francs, or less, can only benefit under this law up to that amount (Art. 2), and can only claim under this law (Art. 35); but a workman whose wages are higher may elect to proceed under this law, or may be left to his remedy at common law. If he proceeds at common law there is no limit to the amount he may recover, but the burden of the proof of negligence is on him, the law making no alteration in this respect.

If an action at common law discloses gross negligence in the employer, the district is only to be liable for so much (if any) as shall be necessary to bring up the amount to the amount allowed by the law.

The procedure proposed by this bill is as follows:-An employer must within eight hours (Art. 12), notify an accident to the Mayor of the Commune, and send a medical certificate. If it is serious, or likely to be fatal, the Mayor forwards the notice to the Justice of the Peace (Juge de Paix), who within twenty-four hours holds an enquiry, with an expert if necessary, and sends the result to the President du Tribunal Civil de l'Arrondissement (Arts. 13 and 14). The enquiry must be concluded in ten days (Art. 15).

Temporary indemnities are settled by the Juge de Paix of the Canton. As regards annuities there is a special procedure. If the parties can agree when summoned by the President du Tribunal Civil, who calls together the representative of the district, and the parties or the injured party's representative, the matter is at an end; if not, the matter goes before the Tribunal Arbitral. This Board of Arbitration sits in the capital of the Arrondissement, and is composed of employers, employed, and the President or his deputy. The employers and employed must both be thirty years of age at least, and able to read and write, and must have resided for two years in the Canton. They are chosen by lot from a list prepared annually, six from each list together with four supplementary jurors. They are all paid,

and each side can challange three. The trial is public, and the decision final, except on a point of law, which may be taken to the Cour de Cassation.

This judgment is the authority for the payment of the annuity, and the Sectional Committee must see that the payment is not continued after the death of the person entitled to receive it.

In addition to the civil liability the master is also liable under the penal Code for injuries caused by negligence.

III. ITALY.

The subject of Employers' Liability in Italy is regulated, as in France and Belgium, by the Code Civil. The Italian Code, by Articles 1151-53, enacted Articles 1382-84, of the Code Civil, and up to the present there is no special legislation on the subject, though numerous attempts have been made to amend the law.

Signor Berti, in 1883, introduced a measure which was rejected in 1885. The bill contained provisions for compulsory insurance, and proposed to shift the burden of proof on to the employer.

In 1890 another bill was introduced by Signor Miceli. In this bill the question of proof was left untouched, as it was contended that the number of accidents for which the employer could rightly be held responsible did not exceed ten or twelve per cent. This bill was never discussed.

In 1891 a similar measure was introduced by Signor Chimirri, Minister of Justice. This bill aimed at providing against the consequences of accidents by compulsory insurance, and in addition it imposed heavy penalties on employers who neglected to take proper precautions for the protection of their workmen.

This bill, however, was not proceeded with, and other measures introduced in 1893 failed, owing to the ministerial crisis of that time. Up to the present no measure has been passed on the subject.

There is, however, in existence in Italy a national fund provided by a law of the 8th July, 1883, for insurance against accidents to workmen. This law sanctioned an

agreement which had been entered into in February of that year between the following banks: the savings banks of Milan, Tunis, Bologna, Rome, Venice, and Cagliari, the Monte dei Paschi of Sienna, the Monte di Pieta and savings bank of Genoa, the Bank of Naples, and the Bank of Sicily, for the foundation of a national fund to insure working men against accidents.

A guarantee fund consisting of 1,500,000 lire was subscribed by these institutions, and the Government gave special privileges for the fund to enable it to compete with private insurance societies, such as granting the gratuitous services of the Postal Savings Banks for effecting insurances. There are three kinds of insurance effected by the Fund:(1) individual; (2) collective; and (3) combined. The first is in favour of a single individual, and guarantees a fixed sum; the second is effected by the owner or contractor for works in favour of all the hands he may employ, or by the administration of working men's associations in favour of their members, or by employer and workmen jointly; the third differs from the second in that the employer or contractor further insures against any civil liability he may incur should the accident be one for which, under the Code, he is legally responsible.

The fund insures against fatal and all other accidents. The maximum sum that can be insured for in case of death is 10,000 lire (£400). In case of temporary accidents no sum is paid until after the fifth day, and then any sum not exceeding the insured's wages, or a maximum of five lire a day, may be insured.

In Northern Italy the large undertakings have made good use of this system of insurance, but in the smaller industries, and in the South, but little advantage has been taken of it. At the end of 1894, even after the International Congress of Labour at Milan, which gave this

institution some stimulus, it had only 40,000 members on its books. Complaints are made as to its scale of charges and benefits. It has certainly not solved for Italy the problem of compensation to workmen (Report of Labour Commission, 1893-94; vol. xxiv., pt. ii., p. 708, Stocquart; Le Contrat de Travail, pp. 143-45; Wolff, "Employers' Liability," p. 73).

CHAPTER II.

ACCIDENT LEGISLATION IN GERMANY.

IN Germany as in France the Common Law has long since been found insufficient to meet the growing requirements of the altered state of things caused by the modern commercial development. A workman injured in his master's employ by a fellow-servant or by defects in the plant, or owing to his obedience to orders given by a foreman or other person whose orders he was bound to obey, was left to his remedy under the Codes, and had to assert his right by means of an action. In order to obtain compensation he was bound to show that the master had himself been careless, or had not exercised due care and caution in the choice of his assistants, and if he failed in this difficult task, or if the master showed that the injury was caused by force majeure, the workman was left without any redress, and had to bear the consequences of an injury incurred in his master's employ.(a)

From the first part of this essay it will be noticed that attempts were made by writers and courts to mitigate the

(a) In view of the modern doctrine of the responsibility of a master for injuries caused to his workmen whilst in his employ and about his business, Brunner's summary of early Germanic Law is very interesting:

"The master was liable for the wergeld of the workman if the latter lost his life in the service, and for the appropriate money payment if he was injured-so far as the injury could not be imputed to some third person for whom the master (who had to answer for the misdeeds of his own people) was not responsible. If one who was in the service of another lost his life by misadventure, by reason of a fall, or of fire or of water, the accident was imputed to the master as homicidium. If one person sent another away or summoned him on the former's business, and the latter lost his life while executing the order, the former was taken as the mortis causa" (Brunner, D.R.G. ii. 549)..