MINERS' PHTHISIS.

Thames Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 14612, 30 August 1913, Page 3

MINERS' PHTHISIS.

REPRESENTATIONS TO 'PARLIAMENT.

A petition has been presented to Parliament from, the widow of a miner who had died of miners' phthisis. Replying to a charge thiiit- the Govern ment was not doing; enough for miners suffering frbm the disease., the! Hon. F. M. B. Fisher, Minister in charge of the Government Insurance Department, said he had every sympathy with the miners, but theirs was not by any means an easy case to deal with.. The Government had not been idle. The Insurance .Commissioner had collected information which Lad been supplied to him and which he proposed to circulate among the members of the House. From that information he had learned what he did not know before, that the reason why the accident insurance companies objected to insure against this disease, was that doctors ■were unable to identify the industrial disease of miners' phthsts as distinct from ordinary consumption. This, and other qfrcum'S+jaiK'es satisfied him that the matter would not v.c dealt with through 1 the Work:-V Compensation Act. These unfortunate miners had to ha provided for, ■but this could not be done under +,hia Act. Otherwise. Insurance Companies miiiht be .asked to pay out on an alleged case of pneiiimoconisis, which was in. fact an ordinary case of cpmsu.mption.for the doctors could not distinguish' the two diseases. He was convinced, however, that something should be done for miners suffering from pneumoconisis, and that Government had not los£ sight of the matt or .Ho hoped the time was not far distant when permanent provision for these cases could be made preferably by legislation to deal gen erally with the cases of all men par--2,\XOAV TOO.IJ pO-;C^OKd'BOT.n A*ftTIOUI?UI l by disea.se. Whatever provision was made should foe permanent; it was not very humane to <?ive a miner suffering from th© disease a grant from the Miners' Relief Fund and then ro turn him adrift.