Some Experiences of the Difficulties and Abuses of the Workmen's Compensation Acts

The Workmen's Compensation Acts were framed with the intention of providing means for genuine workers who were disabled in the course of their employment-and few, of any shade of political opinion, will deny that it is fair that the employer should have to take his share in supporting a man, who has been injured, whilst working in his service. But, unhappily, in practice the scheme has led to much hardship to employers, and has exposed them to the plots and plans which lazy or dishonest men are ever ready.to form in order to extract money. Such men are aided and abetted by the least reputable members of the legal 'profession. I know as a fact that it is the custom of some of the latter gentry to ascertain day by day from the receiving-room porters at the hospitals the names and adJresses of casualties treated there, and to offer the injured men to take charge of their cases. They then proceed to place every difficulty in the way of an amicable settlement in order to increase their own costs; and finally, I"hen the case is settled, the unfortunate workmen find that only a proportion of the money awarded comes into their own pockets, whilst in the event of the claim not being sustainable, and of the employer gainingthe case in the county court, no costs