THE MINING DIFFICULTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 13949, 4 January 1909, Page 4

THE MINING DIFFICULTY.

The serious difficulty which has arisen in the mining industry in connection with the new provisions in the Workers' Compensation Act, which came into force on the first of this month, is another instance of the evils that attend' crude and illconsidered legislation. While the desire to better the position of the worker is legitimate and laudable, and entitled to general sympathy, it is apt to defeat its own object when the means by which it is proposed to accomplish that improvement impose heavy or unreasonable obligations on others. The present trouble is a case in point. The amended Act increases the benefits to miners incapacitated by those diseases peculiar to their class, and which are due to the nature and conditions of their calling. Employers can only safeguard their own interests by a system of insurance but in this particular instance the insurance companies, in order to protect themselves in view of the increased liability which they are asked to incur, insist on all miners being subjected to a medical examination. The men decline to agree to this, fearing that such an examination would result in a large number of them being rejected, on the grounds that they had already contracted one or other of the diseases enumerated in the Act. As that result is exceedingly probable, the attitude of the miners is natural enough under the circumstances, for' it means that the afflicted worker would-be thrown out of employment, or permitted to continue in it only on condition of exempting his employer from all liability, in respect of such disease. On the other hand, the employers cannot be blamed for the action they have taken. The decision of the insurance companies leaves them no other alternative. The regrettable impasse that has been reached, and which threatens to lead to a stoppage of mining operations, was inevitable, nor do we see how the difficulty can be satisfactorily solved with justice to both sides as the law stands at present. It is earnestly to be hoped, however, that some acceptable modus vivendi will be discovered which will ensure the continuance of operations in the mines until Parliament can deal with the whole matter.