COMPENSATION LAW

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 144, 21 June 1930, Page 8

COMPENSATION LAW

WIDENING THE ACT

COMMENT ON REPORT

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.")

DTTNEDIN, This Day

"One is now so used to the proposal that industry must carry the responsibility for injured workmen that one is not disposed to criticise too closely the widening of the ..Act," stated Mr. W. A. Havell (general manager of the "Westport Coal Company) when asked to give his opinion, on the recommendations of the Eoyal Commission which has been investigating the operaiion of the Workers Compensation Act.

Mr. Flavell remarked that the chief proposal to be sent forward by the Commission was the creating of a new Court separate from the Arbitration Court to deal with compensation cases.* Presumably the Commission had had sufficient evidence placed before it to show that delays in. consideration of compensation cases had been so flagrant as to-justify the proposal. Mr. P. J. O'Began, who specialised in compensation, cases, had recently advocated this change before the Arbitration Court sitting at Westport. It remained to be seisn whether the increased cost involved was justifiable. It was proposed that an allowance up to £25 for medical and surgical treatment and first-aid was to be charged against employers. It was assumed that this was in lieu of the £1 provided for in the case of large employers. This would entail a very considerable expense. A smaller sum was originally placed in the Act to cover cases where employees meet with accidents on the street or on the wharf, and the question arose as to who was responsible for the bill of the doctor who might be sent for to apply firstaid. It was then decided that employers should be responsible and that the bill should not exceed £1. It was noticed that several additional diseases had been included, and where it could be: shown that these had been, contracted in the course of employment the proposal might not bo unreasonable. The difficulty tras in determining whether or not the disease was contracted while a man was working for a previous employer.

Another feature of the report was the provision that persons employed otherwise thai at manual labour whose remuneration reached £520 should receive the benefit of the Act. This was an increase in the scope of the Act from £400. Year by year there was a tendency for the Act to be widened and enlarged. This, of courso, meant additional premiums, and in many industries it would run to some thousands of pounds per annum.