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three hundred times his average daily wages or those of individuals of his class. If the sufferer dies, funeral expenses and>; annuities to those dependent on him are paid very much as in Austria. In Germany very small annuities may, for the sake of convenience, be compounded for by payment ot accidentg for whioh compensation may no t be claimed are cases in which a workman has intentionally injured himself. Mere negligence does not disqualify a sufferer from receiving compensation. The amount awarded is decided by the trade societies ; but the clamant may appeal to a State Arbitration Court, and, in the most important class of cases, to the Imperial Insurance Office, a supreme official body which may be said to overlook and contro the insurance system both m its accident and in its invalidity and old-age branches. This body consists of about twenty-five members and though the majority of its members are permanent Government officials, both workmen s delegates and representatives of the employers sit on it. The expenses of the h surance associations are advanced every ?ear by the State through the Post Office. At the>d of the year a general assessment is made to cover the amount of the year's outgoings, and this sum has to be refunded to the State by the trade associations. Eachjtrade association in turn assesses all its members, and every employer is rated according to the danger to which he exposes his association. The danger rates vary according to the nature of the trade and the condition of the individual factory and its machinery. It may be pointed out that where employers or their managers cause accidents by criminal conduct or gross neglect, they will not be relieved of personal responsibility by the mere fact that they are contributors under the State insurance system. They may be held liable to pay full compensation to be divided between the injured individual and any sick-fund or accident society which may have assisted the sufferer. Prevention of Accidents in Germany. Dγ Krische a member of the Civil Service of Saxony, furnished to the Conference an extremely interesting summary of that side of the German insurance system which touches on the prevention o Tccidents or the deduction of their number. While, of course, any system which compensates workmen fairly for accidents the result of professional risks must be considered a valuable system still the highest object of every Government and every industrial code must be to dimmish the number of lc id nt and the amount of suffering resulting therefrom. Now, in theory the German £*»«(«£ bined insurance and inspection is one of the best m the world, and might be expected to show better r suits than those seen in other civilised countries. In Germany the State to a —derate «Jg keeps the inspection of factories and machinery in its own hands, and has done a good deal to extend and improve its inspecting system since the coming into force of the accident-insurance laws, lor instant in 1882 there were but sixty-one Government Inspectors for the prevention of industrial dangerTn all Germany, whereas m 1903 their number had risen to 382, and among these 382 were mc uded fifty-two women assistants and six expert chemists. The number of visits of inspection registered by this staff was 167,000 in the year last mentioned-more than six tames the number of the inspection S paid in the' year 1887* To a very large extent, however, the.German■ rely upon the assistance of the insurance corporations. Composed, as these are largely of the %cry mfsteTwho have to pay compensation for accidents, it might be expected that if armed with proper powlrhly would furmsh theLst efficient check on the use of dangerous machinery «« *j£*j lessness of unskilful, ignorant, or drunken workmen. The managing committees of the industrial ™ations are therefore authorised to employ inspectors to warn negligent employers whose factories or machinery may be dangerous, and, in the event of contumacy, to put pressure on such factory-owners their insurance rates or by the actual infliction of fines. To no small extent the insurance corporations have made use of these powers, and in the year 1904 they were employing no^β* .than 235 u'Sectors. That these officials do something for their living is evident when we note that, in the vfar 1903% hev ha d visited and examined 110,000 " installations machinery. The : result of all this however' has been curious and somewhat disappointing. The following table, taken from the Sums If the Imperial Office of Assurance, shows the number of accidents officially noted and compensated during last ten years :- *£*" ° f C^—d. .. 309,468 f 75,954 j°J5 ' .. 381,865 $ 2 > 521 !«oq " ... 442,202 105,688 S? .. .. 476,446 117,136 .. 488,706 120,856 S "" * '" "" "' •• 530,421 130,661 \IqI " ;; .. 582,648 138,562 Now even if we make due allowance for ten years' growth of industry in Germany, with a proportionate mcrlL in accidents, and for a certain increase of vigilance m the just quoted remains very discouraging. The explanations furnished are the o ow ng . iirst, more than half the workmen and industries concerned come under the head of agricultural labour, me Sricultural insurance corporations are still notoriously lax in the use of their powers of prevention xXegulation Next, we were told that the promptitude with which the workmen seize everyoccasion to report mmor mishaps and make claims for them as accidents increases year by year. This is not unlikely Sly Dr Krische furnished some very interesting figures intended to prove that only between 15 and 16 per cent, of officially reported accidents could fairly be attributed to defective machtnTy o neglect on the part of employers* Of the remainder, from 42 to 49 per cent, are due m the German officTal estimation! to " inevVble professional danger" ; set down to various degrees of ignorance, clumsiness, and carelessness on the part ot workmen.