NUMBER AND PER CENT OF INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS IN 1906 RESULTING IN TEMPO. RARY DISABILITY, PERMANENT DISABILITY, AND DEATH, BY INDUSTRIES. [Source: Olycksfall i Arbete, 1906. Utgifven afdelning för Arbetsstatistik.]

With regard to the nature of the injuries received, the following table shows the number and per cent of cases in which various parts of the body were injured within each of the principal specified classes of industries:

NUMBER AND PER CENT OF PERSONS INJURED IN INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS IN 1906, BY NATURE OF INJURIES AND INDUSTRY GROUP.

[Source: Olycksfall i Arbete, 1906. Utgifven afdelning för Arbetsstatistik.]

Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per Num- Per ber. cent. ber. cent. ber. cent. ber. cent. ber. cent.

The results of the injuries appear below separately for males and females:

RESULTS OF INJURIES CAUSED BY INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS IN 1906, BY SEX OF PERSONS INJURED.

[Source: Olycksfall i Arbete, 1906. Utgifven afdelning för Arbetsstatistik.]

The highest frequency of permanent injury, as compared with the number of accidents, appeared in the clothing, leather and rubber, textile, and woodenware manufactures, the cases of permanent injury being, respectively, 19.4, 18.2, 15.1, and 13.8 per cent of the total number of accidents occurring in those industries.

As compared with the number of workmen employed, the highest frequency of permanent injury occurred in the following: Quarrying industry, 8.6 cases per 1,000 year workers; woodenware industry, 6.4 cases; machine shops, 4.5 cases; and metal industries, 4 cases per 1,000 year workers.

The highest frequency of death appeared in mining, with 14 cases per 10,000 year workers; this was followed by quarrying and metallurgical trades, each with 8 deaths per 10,000 year workers.

The 13,444 accidents which resulted in temporary incapacity for work caused a total loss of 334,497 days' work, or an average for each accident of 24.9 days. The mean percentage of reduction in working capacity among the 1,228 cases of permanent invalidity was 17.9 per cent, or, if the 462 cases in which the percentage was less than 10 are deducted, the mean percentage of the remaining cases becomes 27 per cent.

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An examination of the conditions in regard to accident insurance obtaining among those who were injured will serve to show to what extent the employers have availed themselves of the right to insure their liability, whether, and in how far they have gone beyond the requirements of their legal liability, for instance, by insuring their employees so as to provide sick relief before the sixtieth day and the payment of the insurance claim in case of accidents happening outside of working hours, and, finally, it will show to what extent they have placed their insurance in the State Insurance Institute and in private companies.

The statistics in regard to insurance are somewhat defective for the reason that the report blank has in a number of cases been interpreted to refer only to insurance taken out and paid for by the employers, and thus a number of cases in which the injured workman had taken individual insurance on his own account have been left out of consideration. The following figures, therefore, have to be accepted with the above reservation.

Of the 15,041 persons reported injured in 1906, 2,721, or 18.1 per cent, were insured only according to article 4 of the law of 1901; 2,884, or 19.2 per cent, carried additional insurance for sick relief before the sixtieth day after the injury, for which the law of 1901 did not provide; and 3,836, or 25.5 per cent, were insured against accidents occurring outside of working hours, making a total of 9,441, or 62.8 per cent of the total number injured, who were insured according to the law. Of this number 1,800, or 12 per cent of the total injured, were insured in the State Insurance Institute; 4,365, or 29 per cent, in private accident insurance companies; and 3,276, or 21.8 per cent, in employers' societies. Besides the above there were 1,046, or 6.9 per cent of those injured, who were insured according to other bases, and 4,554, or 30.3 per cent, who were not insured at all.

Of the 5,600 cases of "not insured, or insured on other bases than provided by the law," however, there were a number of government employees. If these are deducted, it is probably correct to say that about 70 per cent of the persons injured in private, corporate, and communal service were insured in accordance with the law of 1901. It is also probable that this is not far from the percentage of the total working population of Sweden that is insured in accordance with the law. The reports of the State Insurance Institute and of the Insurance Department for 1906 show that the following "legal insurances" were in force in the various regular companies at the end of that year:

NUMBER OF CONCERNS AND OF WORKMEN INSURED ACCORDING TO THE LAW AT THE END OF 1906, BY INSURANCE INSTITUTIONS.

[Source: Olycksfall i Arbete, 1906. Utgifven afdelning för Arbetsstatistik.]

Considering that the above table excludes a number of societies formed by employers of various trades for the legal insurance of their liability under the law, and leaving government employees out of account, we may estimate roughly that two-thirds of all the workmen employed in private, corporate, and communal service in Sweden in the year 1906 were insured in accordance with the provisions of the law of 1901.

The year 1906 is the latest for which general accident statistics for Sweden have been published, as outlined above, but the report of the State Insurance Institute, giving the special statistics for that. institution for the year 1908, is at hand, and it would therefore be well to give an abstract of the latter.

The collective legal insurances in force in the institute at the end of 1908 numbered 2,705 with a provisionally ascertained number of insured workmen amounting to 61,890. The privilege accorded to individual workmen to insure themselves has been availed of only to a slight extent, the number of individually insured persons being only 122.

During the year there were purchased from the institute 196 annuities for workmen who had been injured in accidents, but who were not insured in the institute, and 20 annuities for widows and orphans of workmen killed in accidents. At the end of the year there were 1,183 workmen, 195 widows, and 313 orphans receiving annuities thus purchased from the institute.

The institute received notification during the year of 4,181 cases of accidents befalling workmen insured therein, and the legal indemnity was granted in 3,877 of these, most of the remainder having occurred so late in the year that no decision had, at the end of the year, been reached in their cases.

As regards the results of the accidents, it was found that 3,642 cases, or 93.94 per cent, resulted in temporary injury; 202, or 5.21 per cent, in permanent invalidity; and 33, or 0.85 per cent, in death. Sick relief was paid in 3,795 of the above cases, which in 41 cases began on the sixty-first day after the accident and in the other 3,754 cases before the sixty-first day, the great majority of the injured persons having had additional insurance in accordance with the law of 1904. In 173 cases the sick relief was replaced by a permanent annuity, and in 29 other cases an annuity only was granted, so that the total number of annuities granted amounted to 202, distributed as follows with regard to the degree of invalidity involved: In 32 cases the degree of invalidity was 10 per cent; in 103 cases, from 11 to 20 per cent; in 58 cases, from 21 to 50 per cent; and in 9 cases, from 51 to 100 per cent.

The number of annuities in force at the end of the year and payable to injured workmen who had been insured in the institute was 589, distributed according to amount as follows: Eighty-one of these annuities were for under 30 crowns ($8.04); 267 were for 30 crowns ($8.04) and under 60 crowns ($16.08); 200 were for 60 crowns ($16.08) and under 150 crowns ($40.20); 38 were for 150 crowns ($40.20) and under 300 crowns ($80.40); and 3 for 300 crowns ($80.40).

Of the 33 cases of death, 13 gave occasion only for funeral help, while in the other 20 cases annuities were granted to the survivors, who included 19 widows and 46 orphans. At the end of the year there were 207 such annuities in force in the institute.

The total number of annuities in force at the end of 1908 was 2,487, distributed as follows: Purchased from the institute for injured workmen not insured, 1,183; purchased for widows and orphans of workmen killed and not insured, 508; granted by the institute to injured workmen insured therein, 589; granted to widows and orphans of workmen killed, insured in the institute, 207.

Opinions in accordance with article 15 of the law in regard to the degree of invalidity were rendered by the institute in 1908.in 392 cases, of which 320 were given on the request of the parties themselves upon agreement to that effect, 20 on the request of the courts, and 52 on the request of other government authorities. In addition to these, 73 opinions in regard to persons injured on government railways were given on the request of the railway commission.

SICKNESS INSURANCE.

As in the case of invalidity and old age, there is no state insurance against sickness in Sweden, the latter being provided for chiefly by the numerous sick-relief funds founded on private initiative. Although most of these funds have been founded within the last three or four decades, they nevertheless owe their origin, in Sweden