COMPENSATION FOR ACCIDENT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12637, 26 October 1905, Page 4

COMPENSATION FOR ACCIDENT.

It is a curious fact, but none t/he tees a fact, that New Zealand owes its most liberal laws to the men whom a certain class of place-hunting politicians are wont to style " Conservatives." The legislative history of the past few years may bo summed up in the phrase, " the Opposition has initiated and the Ministry has appropriated." It is, perhaps, somewhat of a coincidence that proof of the accuracy of this estimate should be afforded by the utterances of the candidates for the Wanga,nui seat. Wo do not suggest that either of the gentlomen interested has been guilty of wrongfully appropriating the ideas of his opponents. Our paint as that tlhe most liberal sentiments have fallen from the lips of Mr Bassett, the Oppositionist, and not from the lips of either of the Liberal aspirants for the seat. Is thore a worker who will not appreciate the wisdom, and the liberality, of Mr Bassett's views on the important subject of compenaition for accidents. Mr Bassett made it clear that ihe believes in compensating an Injured worker in a more generous and equitable manner tha:i is provided for by the law >as it as present stands. Mr Bassebt's contention is that a worker who falls wounded in the industrial field should be succoured whereever ho falls, and that the payment of compensation should not be made dependent upon the accident of time and place. At present the whole of the liability is oast on the employer. The State accepts no (responsibility whatever. If a worker is injured during his working Jiowrs the law calls upon the employer to compensate him,, even though the employer may have done everything in his power to safeguard the employee from the risk of accident. But if, a moment after," knocking off" time; the man were to be seriously hurt while on his way home, he must whistle in vain for compensation. The State, for all it cares, will allow liim to die in the gutter, and his family to starve. There is neither equity nor reason in such a policy; and Mr Basset* will have the sympathy of the workers in his. desire to see a more logical and equitable system established. The same broad liberality was manifested in his treatment of the superannuation question. Here, again, he was found in sympathy with the principle, but opposed to the inequity of its application only to cer* tain sections of the community morelv because they happen to be employed in the public service. It certainly seems unfair that a man who has to work hard for his living in the uncertain' sphere of private employment should hxtie'itifrcontribute to the superannuation fund of his more fortunate, and oft times"

better paid, fellow colonists who are permanently employed in the service of the State, while he himself has no Stateafforded and State-aided opportunity of providing for his own old age. The solution of the problem seins to be embodied in Mr Bassett's suggestion for the universal application of a beneficent principle, probably, we think, through^ the medium of a wisely devised combination of the existing superannuation and old age pensions schemes.