illegal and nonenforceable; the compensation granted must be in accordance with the amount of damages sustained, and may be either in the form of a lump-sum payment or of a pension payable annually or at other intervals as the injured person might desire; further, that in case of such pensions the amount may be reconsidered and changed by the courts, upon application of either party, whenever new conditions arise justifying such a measure. The method of compensation is further regulated, according to which the person adjudged responsible for injury or loss of life must provide the cost of treatment, funeral expenses, and means of support of family until recovery, and pensions to all the dependents; but the right of demanding a pension is limited to the widow, sons until majority, and daughters until marriage.

The practical application of this law is regulated to a great extent by senate decisions. These have established (1) that by the term operation" ("exploitation") should be meant not only the actual movements of the trains or steamers, but all work of the employees in connection with the railroad business. The statement of the law excepting accidents "not due to the fault of the management of the enterprise or its agents" may seem to have preserved the dependence of the right of compensation upon the employers' fault or negligence, but by numerous decisions the governing senate has interpreted this phrase to mean "due to the fault of the injured person or to that of an outsider." The burden of establishing such a fault or act of negligence is clearly placed by the law upon the employer. Thus there is no doctrine of fellow-servant. The entire responsibility for trade risk is thrown upon the employer, and the development of a doctrine. of contributory negligence, of which slight traces might have been found in the exception quoted, was prevented by senate decisions clearly establishing that such contributory negligence reduces the amount, but does not altogether destroy the right of compensation. Thus only three groups of accidents remain beyond the scope of the law those due to gross negligence of the injured, to negligence of outside parties, or to "vis major."

The law was amended on May 30 (June 11), 1888, to the effect that in giving judgment in favor of the plaintiff the amount of compensation paid over to the injured or his heirs by the railroad employees' pension, saving, and benefit funds must be discounted. Such benefit funds were made obligatory for all private railroad companies by the law of May 30 (June 11), 1888, while a general pension fund for the employees of the state railroads was established by an act of June 3 (15), 1894. These funds will be discussed in a later section. It may be noticed here that since obligatory contributions by the employees constitute the main source of income of .these funds, this last provision throws back upon the employees the

greatest share of the burdens which, according to article 683, devolves upon the employer.

On the other hand, in case of total disability the injured employee receives a life annuity of three-fourths his annual salary. If the permanent disability be such as to disqualify him from further employment in railroad service, while permitting some other gainful occupation, then the compensation, in the form of an annuity, depends upon the length of previous service, being one-third of his annual salary for not over fifteen years of service, one-half of his salary in case of previous service of over fifteen years but not more than twenty years, and three-fourths if the injured person had been in the service for over twenty years. In case of a fatal accident the widow of the deceased employee receives one-half of the pension to which her husband would have been entitled if totally disabled. An important distinction between the ordinary systems of compensation for accidents and the activity of these pension funds is found in the provision that after death of the husband while a pensioner for disability, the widow receives a pension equal to one-half of his.

Each child surviving a fatally injured employee receives from 10 to 15 per cent of the pension he would have received if alive but totally disabled, and each child surviving a pensioner receives 10 to 15 per cent of the pension he received, the proportion differing in the pension funds of different railways; but the total amount of pensions to children must not exceed 50 per cent of the pension of the deceased, so that the family of the deceased employee may receive together an amount equal to his pension.

HISTORY OF THE GENERAL COMPENSATION LEGISLATION.

The problem of compensation of workmen for industrial accidents has been attracting the attention of Russian authorities as well as of the Russian manufacturers since the beginning of the eighties, and the efforts for its solution may be divided into three classes: (1) The elaboration of plans for a general comprehensive law in legislative institutions; (2) organization by the various departments of the Government of systems of compensation or insurance for special groups of workmen, mainly those engaged in state industries; and (3) voluntary efforts made by employers toward insurance of workmen, partly for humane and partly for business reasons.

The history of the legislative efforts will be discussed in the following section. The early special legislation concerning the government employees will be discussed in connection with the chapter devoted to that topic, and the history of voluntary accident insurance will also be treated separately.

Under the old régime of Russia prior to the granting of the constitution of 1905, legislative proposals were elaborated by the various

administrative departments, and presented through the Imperial Council to the Emperor for his approval. As early as 1859, and several times since, commissions were created within the Ministry of Finance for revision of factory laws which, among other things, prepared drafts of a law defining employers' liability for industrial accidents, but the plans of these commissions never reached the stage of discussion in the Imperial Council.

In the development of the principle of compensation of workmen for results of industrial accidents, a considerable stimulus was given by the employers themselves.

As early as 1881, i. e., about three years before the German system of insurance against accidents was established, the influential Society for Encouragement of Russian Industry and Commerce elaborated. a plan for obligatory state insurance of workmen against accidents, which guaranteed compensation for all injuries, unless incurred voluntarily, and placed the entire burden upon the employers, i. e., the industry. The plan was presented to the minister of finance, but did not proceed any further.

1 In the same year the congress of mining operators in Kharkov organized a miners' aid fund. In 1893 a petition was presented by the manufacturers of Moscow for a universal compulsory system of state insurance, to be realized by a tax upon the employers, and managed entirely by the governmental authorities. This feeling was not universal, for in the same year the publication of Von Witte's plan for employers' liability legislation called forth a formal protest from the "Congress of Mine Operators of Southern Russia and Poland," which was indorsed by the Council of Iron and Steel Manufacturers' Association. The whole subject of employers' liability, workmen's compensation, and compulsory insurance received a very prolonged and thorough discussion at the Pan-Russian Congress of Commerce and Industry, held at Nizhni Novgorod in August of 1896, in connection with the Pan-Russian Exposition. Two sessions of the congress and an entire volume of its reports were devoted to the consideration of the question of workmen's insurance. The board of the Moscow bourse forwarded a resolution favoring state compensation to the workmen for injuries caused by industrial accidents by a system of compulsory state insurance, the cost to be put upon all industrial establishments, by means of a tax upon the wage expense or the number of workmen, and proportionate to the degree of hazard presented by the various industries; two other chambers of commerce presented similar rosolutions, proposing, however, an equal distribution of the burden between the employer and employee. During the discussion of the problem at the session of the congress the strong preference of the manufacturers for a system of insurance as against employers' liability strongly asserted itself, and the congress

resolved that "of the two methods of compensating workmen against accidents-workmen's insurance or a special employers' liability law-the system of insurance must be declared the more perfect one." Further, the congress resolved that "from the point of view of the interests of the employees as well as of the employers, the best method of providing for the worker disabled either through accident, sickness, or old age from earning a living would be such a system of compulsory insurance of the workers, which was not conducted for commercial profit and therefore should be placed under state supervision; it should not be limited to employees in factories and mills, but should include all workers employed in industrial activity. Should, however, the organization of a system of compulsory insurance under state supervision be found impossible in the immediate future, then it would be highly desirable that the employers make efforts to provide for insurance of their employees either in the existing private insurance companies or by organization of mutual insurance societies, the possibility of entry to which should be afforded to the proprietors of the small industrial establishments." Furthermore, the congress recognized that the existing legislation in regard to employers' liability was very deficient in that it did not conclusively establish the employers' liability for the trade risk of employment, and that for this reason private insurance must supplement existing legislation and specifically include the results of trade risk.

Thus the congress of commerce and industry recommended a material extension of the workman's rights for compensation. This recommendation may be explained by the statements made at the congress that a few heavy judgments of court in favor of the injured employees or the families of employees killed have demonstrated to the employers the preference of insurance over liability. The heavy cost of litigation was also felt by many manufacturers. Besides, with the introduction of insurance in one establishment the demand for it often spread rapidly through the whole industrial district, the workmen discriminating against employers who refused to provide for such insurance. The constant litigations were admitted to lead to strained relations between the employers and employees, which were destructive of factory discipline and efficiency. Besides, many representatives of large industrial establishments and almost all the representatives of the smaller establishments admitted that the danger of possible accidents, with the heavy burden of damages, was a disturbing factor in the calculation of cost of production, and that insurance was preferable, as it permitted an estimate of this element of

cost.

Under the influence of the memorial of the Society for Encouragement of Russian Industry and Commerce, presented in 1881, the Council of Commerce and Manufactures, under the Ministry of Finance,

was charged with the duty of preparing a draft of an employers' liability law. This draft was finally presented to the Imperial Council in 1889 by the minister of finance. This was the first important effort at a solution of the problem of industrial accidents.

The plan, while it proposed to establish a fairly liberal system of compensation, similar to that of the German law, up to a pension of 60 per cent of the earnings in cases of fatal accident, and even a pension equal to the full earnings in cases of total disability, on the other hand it strictly limited the liability of the employer to cases of his well-established negligence or that of a superintendent, thus virtually establishing a fellow-servant doctrine. Another provision of the bill placed upon the plaintiff the entire burden of proof of such negligence. Thus the plan decidedly limited the rights of the workman as they existed under the general laws; far from relieving the injured workman from the expenses of a court trial, it would tend to create conditions under which the legal battles would have to be more persistent, and reduced the chances of the workman for a favorable private settlement.

The bill was therefore a step backward in the development of employers' liability and did not meet with the approval of the Imperial Council. The ministers of justice, of interior, of state domains, and of ways of communication raised objections.

This draft was referred back to the Ministry of Finance and in a few years a new draft was elaborated and introduced in the Imperial Council by the minister of finance, on March 15 (27), 1893.

This plan was in many respects much more thorough than that of 1889. It extended the liability of the employers to all accidents except those due to vis major, to actions of third parties, or to malicious intent or fault of the injured; in other words, the scope of liability was made practically equal to that of the railroad and steamship companies. The last limitation was undoubtedly an important one, but the burden of proof of the employee's fault or negligence was placed upon the employer, so that a considerable share of the trade risk was shifted, while in the plan of the bill of 1889 it rested upon the workman. Contributory negligence of the injured did not altogether relieve the employer of the responsibility, the draft providing that in such cases the courts could reduce the normal compensation by one-fourth to one-half. The plan of 1893 also applied to all employees, while the preceding project was limited to wage-workers only. Finally, it contained an important innovation in classifying trade diseases with injuries due to industrial accidents.

In the general scheme of pensions and allowances to the injured or his family the new plan followed quite closely after the old, with 60 per cent of the annual earnings of the injured as a maximum pension. It provided for peaceful agreements between both parties, from which