one member of the house named by its speaker, these persons to constitute a commission to make inquiry into the subject-matter recited in the above quotation from the preamble of the resolution. The legis lation of the various States and of foreign countries is to be considered, as well as the results of the same, and a bill is to be reported to the next session of the legislature, with the reasons therefor. The expenses of this commission are limited to $1,000. The other legislature to take action in this direction is that of Ohio, which enacted a law (senate bill No. 250, approved May 17, 1910) authorizing the appointment by the governor of a commission to be composed of persons known to possess knowledge and training in the subject of employers' liability laws and compensation of employees for injuries. Two of these persons are to represent employers, 2 to represent labor, and the fifth to be an attorney at law. This commission is to conduct an "investigation into the subject of a direct compensation law or a law affecting the liability of employers to employees for industrial accidents." The commission is authorized to visit different States and localities, to investigate the laws of other States and countries, and to employ and pay all necessary assistants. Actual and necessary expenses are authorized, no amount being specified. A full report of the work and findings of the committee is directed to be made at the opening of the next regular session of the general assembly," together with such bill or bills providing for the speedy remedy for employees for injuries received in the course of their employment as will be fair, just, and reasonable to both employers and employees." This legislature passed a very advanced employers' liability law before adjournment.

CONFERENCES OF COMMISSIONS.

Members of the three commissions appointed in 1909-i. e., of Minnesota, New York, and Wisconsin-with other persons interested in the subject, met, at the invitation of the Minnesota commission, in a conference on workmen's compensation acts at Atlantic City, N. J., in July, 1909. Constitutional and economic considerations were presented in this conference, and a permanent organization provided for, to be known as the "National Conference upon Compensation for Industrial Accidents." The second meeting of this body was held at Washington in January, 1910, a third at Chicago in June, and a fourth arranged for at St. Louis in December, 1910. At the Washington conference the same state commissions were represented as at Atlantic City, while at Chicago the programme called for reports from these three and from the Illinois, New Jersey, and Ohio commissions, the Massachusetts commission having been appointed too late to be mentioned in the programme, though it was represented at the meeting.

MINNESOTA BILL.

The subject announced for discussion at the Chicago conference of June, 1910, was the "Workers' compensation code," this being the name given to the draft of a bill proposed for submission to the legislature of the State of Minnesota. This draft proposes to substitute for liability under the common law and state statute law a provision for compensation to apply to all dangerous employments, such employments being defined as all those in which hereafter occurs any bodily injury to an employee arising out of and in the course of such employment.

The sections of the bill providing for and defining the compensation to be paid are as follows:

SECTION 2. That every such employer shall be liable to pay to every such employee so injured, or in case of his death, to the legal representatives, as hereinafter defined and apportioned for all bodily injuries received by such employee arising out of, and in the course of, such employment in this State disabling such employee from the regular services in such employment for more than ten days and according to the schedule of rates contained in section three of this act, on the condition precedent only, that, in case of dispute as to the amount to be paid for such injuries, or the failure or refusal to agree upon or to pay same, such employee or the legal representatives thereof shall comply with the provisions of this act.

SEC. 3. The compensation herein and hereby allowed, if established as herein provided, having arisen out of and in the course of such dangerous employment within this State, shall be on the following basis:

(a) For immediate death or for death accruing within five years as a result of such injuries, or for injuries causing total incapacity for that service for five years or more, sixty per cent of the amount of wages the injured was receiving at the time of the accident for a period of five years, provided, such payment shall not continue longer than to aggregate three thousand dollars.

(b) For total or partial disability for less than five years, sixty per cent of the wages the injured was receiving at the time of the injury so long as there is complete disability for that service and that proportion of the said percentage which the depleted earning capacity for that service bears to the total disability when the injury is only partial or after it becomes only partial.

(c) In addition to the foregoing payments, if the injured loses both feet or both hands, or one foot and one hand, or both eyes, or one eye and one foot or one hand, he shall receive, during the full period of five years, forty per cent of the wages which he was receiving at the time of such accident; or if he loses one foot, one hand, or one eye, the additional compensation therefor shall be fifteen per cent of his wages; or if he be otherwise maimed or disfigured, then, for such maiming or disfigurement, during the time it shall continue, he shall receive therefor such proportion of forty per cent as such maiming or disfigurement bears in depleted ability in the employment to the relative loss of the members specified herein: Provided,

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That in no case shall all of the payments received herein exceed in any month the whole wages earned when the injury occurs, nor shall the said forty per cent when all received, or any portion thereof, and the said sixty per cent when all received, or any portion thereof, continue longer than to make all sums aggregate five thousand dollars.

The determination of claims is to be effected by a "board of awards" to consist of three members from each judicial district of the State. The risk may be insured, and a percentage (not fixed in the draft) of the cost of such insurance may be deducted from the employee's wages. Provisions for rehearing are contemplated, but not provided for in this draft of the bill. A provision that is necessary and common to all bills on the subject is that injured employees shall submit themselves to medical examination from time to time at the expense of the employer, refusal to submit thereto suspending payments during the continuance of such refusal.

WISCONSIN BILL.

The Wisconsin commission in March, 1910, presented two tentative bills to the public, one modifying the law as to employers' liability, and the other proposing a compensation law proper. Public hearings were held on these bills in April, after which the bills were redrawn and again printed, while a third draft, embodying a number of changes, was presented in midsummer. The compensation bill provides for a choice by private employers between its provisions and those of the proposed liability bill, but is compulsory on the State and its municipalities in their capacity as employers. Employees may reserve their rights to sue under common or statute law by contracts in writing at the time of hiring, though it will be presumed that both employer and employee have accepted the compensation law as governing their rights in case of accident. Principal contractors are liable for injuries to employees of subcontractors, but may be indemnified by such subcontractors if the board of arbitration provided for in the act so awards. The provisions of this bill as to compensation are contained in sections 12 to 15, which are as follows:

SEC. 12. Any employee injured while performing duties growing out of and incidental to his employment, or his legal representative if death results therefrom, shall, without regard to negligence, receive compensation from his employer as herein provided, except for injuries or death caused by the willful misconduct or intoxication of such employee.

SEC. 13. So far as preference or lien is concerned, the compensation herein provided shall stand exactly upon the same basis as the wages of such employee.

SEC. 14. The compensation payable according to this act shall be as provided in the following schedule:

(1) In case of disability the compensation shall be:

(a) Free medical treatment at the time of the injury and as long thereafter as necessary, not to exceed ninety days, medicine and other means of treatment, also the facilities (crutches, supporting apparatus, etc.) to aid in the success of the treatment and to diminish the effects of the injury.

(b) An indemnity, payable as wages on the first day of the second week after the injured employee leaves work as the result of the injury, and at the same intervals thereafter as long as the disability lasts, or until the amount of the indemnity paid equals the amount of compensation payable as a death benefit.

(c) If the period of disability does not last more than one week from the day the injured employee leaves work as the result of the injury, no indemnity shall be paid.

(d) The amount of the indemnity shall be:

First. In the case of total disability, 65 per cent of the annual earnings.

Second. In the case of partial disability, 65 per cent of the loss in wages.

(e) If the injury causes the irrecoverable loss of one or both eyes, or the immediate severing of hand or foot at or above the wrist or ankle, the following benefits, which shall be in lieu of an indemnity, shall be paid:

First. In the case of the total and irrecoverable loss of the sight of one eye, three-fourths of the average annual earnings; of both eyes, four times the average annual earnings, but not less than two thousand dollars.

Second. In the case of the loss of one hand or one foot, one and onehalf times the annual earnings, but in any event not less than five hundred dollars nor more than two thousand dollars; of both hands or both feet, or of one hand and one foot, four times the average annual earnings, but not less than two thousand dollars.

(f) If in consequence of the accident the injured person is rendered not only entirely incapable of work, but also sufficiently helpless to require the assistance and care of a nurse, the indemnity shall be increased to one hundred per cent of the annual earnings as long as this condition lasts, or until the indemnity paid equals the amount of compensation payable as a death benefit.

(g) If the injured person was at the time of the injury already suffering from partial or permanent disability, and is also receiving compensation therefor, compensation shall be paid in accordance with subsection five of section fifteen in the same manner and to the same extent as though the former injury had not been sustained.

(2) In case the injury results in death, the compensation shall include the benefits provided in subsection one of this section for the period before death, and an additional amount sufficient to make the whole compensation equal to the following:

(a) If the injured person leaves any person or persons wholly dependent upon his earnings at the time of his death, a sum equal to three times his annual earnings, computed according to the provisions of section fifteen, in the employment of the same employer during the year next preceding the injury, but not less than one thou

sand dollars nor more than three thousand dollars; this sum, with interest at six per cent per annum, shall be paid as wages and at the same intervals until the whole amount has been paid, unless the county judge of the county in which said dependent or dependents reside, upon application made to him for that purpose, shall determine that such compensation should be paid in a lump sum.

(b) If the injured person leaves no one wholly dependent upon his earnings, but leaves any person or persons partially dependent thereof, a sum equal to the same proportion of the payments provided for the benefit of persons wholly dependent as the amount contributed to said partial dependents bears to the annual earnings of the deceased at the time of his injury.

(c) If the injured person leaves no dependents, a reasonable sum for his burial, which shall not exceed one hundred dollars.

SEC. 15. The basis for computing the compensation specified in section fourteen shall be as follows:

(1) The compensation is to be computed on the basis of the annual earnings which the injured employee received as salary or wages in that employment during the year next preceding the injury. Wages or salary in excess of one thousand dollars shall not be considered.

(2) The annual earnings, if not otherwise determined, are to be regarded as three hundred times the average daily earnings. In such computation wages in excess of three dollars and thirty-three and onethird cents a day shall not be considered. For persons in employments in which it is the custom to operate for a part of the whole number of working days, such number shall be used instead of three hundred as the basis on which to reckon the daily earnings.

(3) If the injured person has not been employed in the employment for a full year immediately preceding the accident, compen-ation shall be reckoned according to the annual earnings which persons of the same class of the same or neighboring employments of the same kind have earned during this period. If this is impossible, three hundred times the amount which the injured person earned on an average on those days when he was working during the year next preceding the accident is to be used as a basis for the computation.

(4) In the case of injured persons who earned either no wage or less than three hundred times the usual daily wage of the adult day laborers of that locality, the yearly wage shall be reckoned as three hundred times this average local daily wage in the same or similar employments.

(5) In computing the compensation in the case considered in subdivision "g" of subsection one of section fourteen for persons who before the injury were already suffering from partial or permanent disability, the yearly earnings shall be reckoned as three hundred times the average daily wage received at the time of the last injury.

The bill provides for notice of injury, medical examinations at the option and cost of the employer, and for a board of arbitration for the adjustment of disputes. Appeals may be had from the findings of this board to the circuit court of Dane County, in which the state capital is located. Insurance of the risks under the law is contemplated, the compensation for each workman to constitute an individual