COMPENSATION BILL.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 December 1925, Page 4

COMPENSATION BILL.

x.s.w. sen km in XYDXKY. November ltd. Employers arc viewing with disquiet some ol the far-reaciiing clauses ol the Labour (on cruiiicnl ’> amending Compcsimtion Hill, which is now before I’a ilia men l. They are looking to the Legislative Council -and they will probably not look in vain —for amendincuts which will make the measure a Idle more equitable, and remove from it one or two provisions for wha"i are really indefinable and incalculable risks. If. for example, a worker is killed while journeying to or from his work, then his employer will he liable to pay compensation to Ids dependants. If be is injured, but not. fatally, then he will lie compensated. According to the Minister, although it is not expressly slated in the Rill, a worker must he proceeding directly to or from his work, and not lingering about on the way, ii he is to be compensated for any accident on such journey. bill it will not be at all easv to determine, if he does meet with an aeeideivt. whether lie took the straight and direct path to or from his job, or whether he deviated from it. Again. Iho aeiedent may possibly he due to the carelessness of the worker, but the employer will have to pay. On the face of it, although the provision is copied from other legislation, it looks like stretching a little far Hie principle of compensation. Again* any'] disease contracted by a worker in the course of his employment is, in com-j

nton with injuries, subject lo compensation. This is reasonable enough if it can ho determined definitely and beyond dispute that the disease was thus contracted, but assuming a man catches a cold and pneumonia develops. AYho is to say that the cold was caught while the man was at work? Or it might lie typhoid fever, which can be contracted in a hundred different and unsuspected ways. To determine whether illness was contracted in the course of a man's job will in not a few cases be impracticable.

Iho attitude of the Opposition Js that, in such circumstances of indefinable risks, the cases should be met. not under a Hill such ns this, but under a contributory national accident and sickness fund, and that in some respects the Hill is reducing to an absurdity the ordinary principles governing compensation, and placing upon employers an unjust burden. Compensation has its economic, as well as humanitarian aspect. The Opposition asks that both aspects, and not merely the latter, should be considered, sepecially when industry has to hear the cost, in accordance with the fundamental principle of compensation.