On Thursday, the Employers' Liability Bill was read a third
time and passed, after a vigorous protest from Mr. Chamberlain, who thinks that the Bill will prove to be much more mischievous than salutary. It omits, he says, to provide, by insurance, for the many accidents which cannot be traced to any kind of negligence or shortcoming on any one's part ; and worse still, it will immensely stimulate litigation, and discourage, instead of encouraging, those voluntary efforts which the greater employers of labour have made towards coming to a cordial understanding with their working men. In fact, the Bill had been drawn without fully consulting the larger employers of labour. Another speaker described the Bill as the Bill of the Trades-Unions, who do not like the understanding that has been arrived at between the great employers and their men. Mr. Asquith said that, in fact, he bad consulted the employers of labour very anxiously ; and he ridiculed the notion that the Bill would extin- guish the provident funds of the great railways. We shall see how it really operates; but perhaps the House of Lords may intervene to save the Bill from the worst of the flaws it contains,—the provision refusing to even the most experienced class of employes the right of contracting themselves out of its provisions for an adequate consideration.
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