Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/823

NOTES AND MEMORANDA ?01 half-timers in the textile trades to thirteen. Then resolutions were passed in fayour of the payment of members of parliament and local bodies, of the formation of a Labour Party (though the Congress refused to sanction the creation of a special parliamentary election fund to be raised by voluntary penny contributions); of a law extending the right to sit on juries to all parliamentary electors, and paying them 10s. a day for their services; of a law giving representatives of trade unions the right to be present at coroners' inquests on deceased members of the union;of an amendment to the Conspiracy Act, clearly restricting intimidation to threats of violence; of a law requiring that no Govern- ment or Hunicipal contract be given to any firm that does not conform to trade union hours and rates of wages. The Congress further de- manded the abolition of the common employment doctrine in the Employers' Liability Bill, and the requirement of certificates of com- petency for engineers in charge of steam-engines and boilers; but it rejected, by 129 to 107, the proposal for a State Board of Arbitration, being unwilling, in spite of the growing love for the State, with which it is credited, to give up to it the freedom of trade action. Among the subjects the Congress had no time to overtake were State superannuation of workmen over sixty, and Mr. Ben Tillett's scheme of municipal workshops. The special subject of accidents to workmen .occupied the attention of an International Congress of experts, as they may be called govern- ment ot?cials, statisticians, economists, inspectors of factories and mines, employers of labour, and others some 300 members in all, who sat for a week at Berne in the same month of September, under the presidency of the Swiss Foreign Minister, M. Numa Droz. Papers were read by persons of reputation upon the legislation and experience of their respective countries. Differences of opinion appeared about State intervention, and it is reported that during the progress of the sittings, the feeling in fayour of such intervention gained ground. But the conclusions arrived at are somewhat general. For preventive mea- sures, the Congress recommended a combination of individual initiative with that of association and of the State;for remedial measures the organization of a system of insurance on the plan best suited to each country. In working out this system it recommended joining accidents of temporary effects with sick insurance, and accidents of permanent effects with old age insurance; and it ended by calling upon the various governments to prepare more thorough statistics of accidents and disease, and by appointing a permanent committee of its own to investigate existing international statistics on the subject, and report to next Congress. In October the German Socialist party held its general Congress at Erfixrt. Two hundred and forty-five delegates attended, and the Government, though not otherwise interfering, was represented by the commissioner of police and two official shorthand writers. The only No. 4.---VOL. I 3 F