ABSTRACT
THE Workmen's Compensation Scheme initiated in 1897 was found wanting in many respects by all who were concerned with its administration. The Beveridge Report summed up the prevailing criticisms under four headings. First, the scheme involved long and complex court litigation between the employee or his trade union and the employer or his insurance company. The result was that it was expensive to administer, it affected adversely industrial relations and, where the employee had no trade union to represent him in court, it meant an unequal court struggle that militated against the employee. This criticism, however, must be seen in the historical context which gave rise to workmen's compensation. It was devised in the paternalistic spirit of the Victorian era when relationships between employer and employee were similar to those between father and child – authoritarian and benevolent. In the same way that the parent-child relationship became gradually freer and more democratic so the employer-employee relations were increasingly turning into industrial partnership. The scheme of workmen's compensation has been outpaced by industrial events and the time was ripe for its reform. Second, the scheme was not comprehensive either as regards risks or persons and it did not afford complete security even to those covered for the employers were not legally compelled to insure with insurance societies against accidents. Third, it permitted payments of compensation in lump sums with the result that where these were mismanaged, they did not provide a permanent source of income. Fourth, the scheme was typical of pre-war planning – or rather lack of planning – in that it made no provision for the medical and industrial rehabilitation of the injured worker. Again the concept of rehabilitation was irrelevant in the realities of the thirties. It became meaningful during World War II with the large number of disabled persons and the acute shortage of labour in war and in peace industries.
