The Economic Review - 1898 Author:John Carter Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTES AND MEMORANDA. Workmen's Compensation In Foreign Countries.—There is a general movement in progress in most European countries with the object of passin... more »g laws securing compensation to workmen injured in the course of their employment, by some self-regulating, non-litigious process, which at the same time shall tend to the prevention of accidents. The necessity of some such measure, the justice of making the expenditure involved a trade-charge leviable upon the employer, rather than damages to be exacted at law as for " tort," and the duty of the State to watch over the application of the measure, are now generally admitted. The last draft measure which has made its appearance, that for the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, states this in plain terms. And consensus, generally speaking, goes even further, to the point of agreeing that it is just, as well as expedient, Jo make no difference between ordinary cases of accident and those in which " serious and wilful misconduct" can be shown or alleged,—except by making such misconduct punishable after proof, the burden of which is to be put upon the accuser. In this general movement Germany has led the way by a bold initiative. She is now engaged in recasting her machinery, so as to give a wider extension to the application of her law and to remedy some defects of procedure. Austria, Norway, to some extent Finland, and even Roumania, have adopted laws of a similar nature. We have passed our incomplete Workmen's Compensation Act. There are draft laws now before the Parliaments of France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Luxemburg. And the Governments of Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Spain, and Hungary are understood to have similar proposals in preparation. Most of these drafts, as well as the laws already actually in force...« less