the representatives of the civil servant dying at any time in the service, and to a civil servant retiring after 40 years of service; and to a civil servant retiring by reason of ill health with less than 40 years' service as many fortieths of a year's pay as years he has served, coupled with a provision that if he should die before this payment and the pension subsequently received amounted to one year's pay, the deficiency should be paid to his representatives.

The commission recommended further that the new system, if adopted, should be extended to all classes of pensionable servants, both wage-earning and salaried. They were of opinion that "the advantages of a money payment being secured in case of death without the pressure of periodic demands for the payment of premiums would be generally appreciated," especially by the wage-earners, and thought that "the risk that the habit of prudence would be endangered by such a provision would not be realized in practice." Said they:

We attach great weight to the principle of similarity of treatment of all classes of pensionable servants so that all may feel that they are working under a common system, and that in the not unknown cases of a servant passing from one class into another no embarrassment may arise from the fact that his vested interests are undergoing a change which must be taken into account.(a)

Minority report of commission adverse to any change.

The Courtney Commission was not unanimous in its findings. Two of its commissioners, Sir Ralph H. Knox and Mr. E. W. Brabrook, dissented from the views of their colleagues, and presented a minority report. They held that it was impossible, without increasing the burden of the taxpayer, to confer on civil servants greater and more uniform advantages than those granted by the existing system. They did not consider the plan recommended by the majority of the commission as more advantageous or more uniform than the existing one. They thought it wise, therefore, to let well enough alone. Said they:

What is called a pension in the civil service is merely the continuance, during the later years of life, of pay promised for a whole life service, during a period when services, if rendered, would probably be useless, and, in many cases, worse than useless. The payments made for the 61st or 66th years of life are no more deferred pay than those made for the 60th or 65th.

This is the present excellent charter of the civil service, and it is not only under this system, but because of it that the English civil service has earned its high reputation for fidelity, zeal, and independence. The advantages of this life provision are given wholly at the charge of the State, and in their present form they have attained

a Report of Commission on Superannuation in the Civil Service. 1903. Report, p. xii.

the objects in view. The same system has been introduced into very many establishments of the highest standing in the country, where continuous, zealous, and thoroughly honest service are the main requirements. (a)

The commissioners who signed the minority report dissented particularly from the view of their colleagues that a cash payment should be made the representatives of the civil servant in case of death; in other words, that life insurance should be furnished him out of his pension. They contended that it were better that it be furnished out of his pay. Reduced pension or reduced pay were clearly the only alternatives. Reduced pension meant a change of law; reduced pay meant continuance of the existing system, since the great majority of the civil servants were doing that very thing, buying insurance for their families and paying for it out of their salaries. The argument of the minority was as follows:

The provision most desired by the great mass of the service is the payment in case of death of as large an amount as possible, approximating at least to the maximum rate of pay which a clerk may reasonably hope to reach, and not a sum governed by the creeping salary of the year in which he may prematurely die.

The best, indeed the only method of obtaining this, is the system of life insurance, for which it is far better that the civil servant should provide from his pay than from his pension. It needs but a little self-denial in the early years of life on the rates of pay now current to make some provision, and the Government having sanctioned the deduction of premium from monthly and quarterly salaries before the salary is paid, the best security is obtained for regularity of payment with the least possible sense of burden on the part of the insurer. The scheme now proposed, however, seems to offer a premium on improvidence. A man is encouraged to sacrifice the provision made for his old age, though but sufficient to maintain him in decent comfort, in order that he may avoid the stress of making a present payment, all the prevailing influences towards thrift being thus inverted. * * *

That this view is sound is shown by the remarkable statistics of insurance referred to by our colleagues as regards civil servants whose incomes are in excess of £160 [$778.64] a year. That it also applies largely to men whose income is small is evidenced by the numerous insurances effected in the postal service, and also may be inferred from excellent movements which have lately been made in connection with two great friendly societies for insurances for their members up to £200 [$973.30]. * * *

The scheme of our colleagues disturbs the present excellent system. in order to substitute a benefit which the vast majority of those who require it can and do already provide for themselves, and which is of no value to those who do not, because they need not provide it.(')

a Report of Commission on Superannuation in the Civil Service. 1903. Report, Idem, pp. xvii and xviii.

Colloquies which took place between Mr. Manly and the minority commissioners at the hearings suggest that the latter may have felt that their views would not be questioned by expert authorities. Said Mr. Brabrook to Mr. Manly:

"The existing contract is the compulsory insurance of a deferred annuity on nonreturnable premium; and taking off one-fourth of that gives an equivalent compulsory endowment insurance of one year's salary?"

"Yes."

"That would apply to all civil servants whether male or female, or whether bachelors or otherwise, would not it?"

"I presume I would make it apply to all."

"If it be the fact that from one-fifth to one-third of the civil servants are better otherwise provided for, is not it a little hard to make them all accept this compulsory insurance which they do not want?"

"Well-"

"I have reason to think that the general body of civil servants, having salaries above £160 [$778.64] a year, do now insure their lives for the benefit of their families to the extent of two or three years' income. Is there any necessity for making compulsory insurance of any further sum?"

"I can not say that there is any necessity for it."

"You are giving them by the deferred annuity a benefit which. they certainly would not insure voluntarily for themselves." "Quite so."

"And you are now proposing to deprive them of a portion of that benefit for the purpose of being applied to an insurance which they do provide for themselves?"

"Yes; but so far as I understand the question we have before us, it has rather been raised by the civil service themselves, has it not?" "By a portion of the civil service?"

'By a portion of the civil service."

66 And my own impression is that is not shared by the more wellinformed portion of the service?"

"I have no knowledge, of course, of that." (a)

Toward the close of Mr. Manly's testimony, after he had explained the way in which he had made his calculations, Sir Ralph Knox said: "The scheme as sketched by you I think is very ingenious, and has its attractions. There is a persuasiveness in the direction of trying to make a man believe that he is not losing anything. The way in which you give ingeniously these sums back, the six years' purchase at 60 years of age, and so forth, makes up his old age pension to him at that period, and you try to persuade him therefore, that he is not losing anything at all, and I think that is the ingenuity of the scheme, but still the fact is none the less that he does gives up upon his maximum pay twenty-five per cent of the ultimate pension?"

"Oh, yes; what he gives up is the equivalent of what you are going to pay to the families or the relatives of those who die."

a Report of Commission on Superannuation in the Civil Service. 1903. Minutes of evidence, p. 181.

"You say you think it would be attractive, but as compared with the system of insurance in which a man in these higher classes can secure £300 or £400 [$1,459.95 or $1,946.60] from the time that he enters the service by a very small payment at 20 years of age, as compared with that, do you think that this is distinctly an advantage, so as to present an attraction?"

"You must not ask me to say that anything can be substituted for life insurance."

"I am quite satisfied with that answer."

"We say it is the best thing a man can do to insure his life." (a)

Sir Ralph and Mr. Brabrook not only disagreed with their colleagues, but predicted that the proposed changes in the law would not be acceptable to the members of the civil service. In concluding their report they said:

If the present civil servants who are in good health were given the option of accepting these changes, we should be surprised if many of them should decide to do so, and we are unable to join in the recommendation of these changes for future entrants, inasmuch as they involve a reduction and redistribution of the present pensions which to us seem most inexpedient, and would be unequal in their effect. ()

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT OF 19C6.

The Workmen's Compensation Act was passed in 1906. With that exception there was no more legislation relating to the pensioning of civil servants, after the passage of the Superannuation Act of 1887, until the present year (1909). Persons engaged in manual labor and other employees whose annual earnings do not exceed £250 ($1,216.63), including civil servants, are entitled, under the terms of the Workmen's Compensation Act or one of the schemes under and in substitution of that act, to compensation for injuries suffered in the course of their employment. Members of the civil service not entitled to compensation for injury under the ordinary law (Workmen's Compensation Act) are pensioned under the old law (the Superannuation Act, 1887), and the Treasury warrant under it. The warrant no longer applies to persons entitled to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act.

The employees of the Admiralty and War Office have almost universally accepted the terms of the Scheme of Compensation (No. 116), in case of injury to workmen in government establishments, which was established in May, 1903, and revised December, 1907. This is accepted by them in lieu of the provisions of the act itself. These schemes have to be approved by the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies. This particular scheme for workmen in government establish

a Report of Commission on Superannuation in the Civil Service. 1903. Minutes of evidence, p. 185.

Idem. Report, p. xviii.

ments was certified by the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies under date of December 16, 1907, as providing scales of compensation not less favorable to the workmen and their dependents than the corre sponding scales in the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906.

The main features of this scheme are as follows: When a government workman dies from injury received in his work his dependents, in case they are wholly dependent on him, receive a sum equal to his earnings during the three years next preceding the injury, or the sum of £150 ($729.98), whichever is the larger, but not exceeding in any case £300 ($1,459.95), and half that sum in case they are only partially dependent on him, minus in either case the amounts of weekly payments that may have been paid in the interval between the time of his injury and the time of his death. If the period of his employment has been less than three years, the amount of his earnings during the three years is deemed to be 156 times his average weekly earnings during the period of his actual employment by the Government. In any case in which the authorities of a department consider that the interests of a workman's dependents would be better served by a pension to the widow or mother (where there is no widow) than by a lump sum, the Treasury may deduct a portion for the dependent child or children, if any (this portion must not be more than one-half of the entire amount if there is only one child or two-thirds if there are more than one), and grant a pension to the widow or mother equal to the annuity which the remainder of the lump sum would purchase, according to the post-office tables for the purchase of immediate annuities. On the death of a workman leaving no dependents a payment of not more than £10 ($48.67) is made to cover the reasonable expenses of his medical attendance and burial.

When incapacity for work results from the injury, the injured workman receives, for the period he is on the "Hurt List" on account of the injury, half his average weekly earnings during the previous twelve months or for any less period during which he has been employed by the Government. In addition, he receives free treatment in a hospital or free medical attendance at home. If incapacity for work continues beyond the period for which the workman receives "hurt pay," an allowance is paid him. This is twenty-four sixtieths of his average weekly earnings during the previous twelve months or during any less period of employment in case his capacity to contribute to his own support has been totally destroyed, eighteen sixtieths when it has been materially impaired, twelve sixtieths when it has been impaired, and six sixtieths when it has been but slightly impaired. Allowances by way of compensation for injury continue only during the continuance of the incapacity, and in cases of doubt