On Wednesday and Thursday the House of Commons was chiefly
occupied with the Report stage of the Workmen's Compensation Bill. We have already noted the provisions of the measure, which in the main are reasonable. The discus- sion centred chiefly in Clause VIII., which gives compensation to a workman who is suffering from any one of eight scheduled occupation diseases. Mr. Masterman moved an amendment to give compensation to any sufferer from a disease incidental to the nature of his employment. Such a provision obviously involved great difficulties of definition,— in Mr. Wedgwood's words, the only illness for which a workman could not claim compensation would be delirium tremens. The amendment was subsequently withdrawn after an undertaking had been given by Mr. Herbert Samuel to add to the scheduled list any diseases which were plainly occupation diseases. By a sub- sequent amendment servants were admitted to the benefits of the Bill ; and it was agreed that when a workman was in- capacitated for less than two weeks no compensation should be payable in respect of the first week. On Thursday the second reading was carried without a division.
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