The Week in Parliament
Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : Tuesday's debate on Workmen's Compensation was a somewhat acri- monious affair. During the last war an Act was passed authorising a temporary increase in the rates of compensa- tion for total incapacity, and the Labour Party had tabled a motion urging that a similar course should be followed on this occasion. The Government, however, was averse to an all-round increase, and preferred to adopt Sir Arnold Wilson's amendment which proposed "a temporary scheme for meeting cases of hardship" pending the receipt of the report of the Royal Commission. Words of this kind carry the suggestion of a Means Test, and the two Oppositions joined in denouncing the introduction of such a principle into our compensation law. Sir John Anderson is acknowledged on all sides to be a thoroughly capable administrator, but he has not yet mastered the whole technique of Parliamentary debate, and his reply was hardly adequate to the occasion. His principal critics were the trade unionists and the lawyers, the two classes who are most conversant with this subject. Both are now highly suspicious of the Government's intentions.
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