20 ITALY - INSURANCE AND THRIFT 



ment has therefore thought it opportune to hasten the adoption of provi- 

 sions which have been the object of long study and respond to "an urgent 

 need of justice " on the part of a numerous class of labourers who make a 

 preponderant contribution to the wealth of the nation (i). 



§ 2. The limits within which the decree 

 of 23 august i917 was applied and the system of insurance. 



On the basis of this decree the following persons between the ages of 

 nine and seventy-five are fully insured against the accidents of agricul- 

 ture : 



a) permanent or casual labourers, men or women, employed on 

 farms and in woods ; 



b) landowners, metayers and lessees, and their wives and children, 

 legitimate and other, who habitually practise manual labour on their res- 

 pective holdings. 



c) overseers of farms and forests who receive an average daily wage, 

 comprising payments in kind, of no more than 10 liras, the year being ta- 

 ken to have 300 working days. 



For the categories of those employed as above on agriculture and fo- 

 restry'' who are contemplated by the law of 31 January 1904, no. 51, the 

 provisions of this law remain in force. 



The cultivation of land and woods and the works connected therewith 

 and complementary or accessory thereto, such as the care of plants, irri- 

 gation, the care, breeding and management of animals, and the prepara- 

 tion, preservation, conversion and transport of agricultural, animal and 

 forest products, constitute the work of farms and woods. 



Thus the insurance applies to cultivation of the land in every form, and 

 the works connected with and accessory to culj;ivation, independently of 

 the extension of farms and woods and the greater or less gravity of the 

 risks of accidents to which labourers on farms and woods are subject, and 

 independently of relations created by contracts between landowners and 

 labourers. 



The insurance covers all cases of accidents by violent means in the 

 course of labour, giving rise to : i) death ; 2) permanent total disability ; 

 3) permanent partial disability reducing working power by more than 15 

 per cent. ; 4) total temporary disability necessitating abstinence from work 

 for more than ten days. Indemnities of this last kind will be payable from 

 the eleventh day of such period of abstinence to the end thereof, up to a 

 maximum limit of ninety days. 



(i) The problem of insurance against the accidents of agriculture has been in Italy the object 

 of many projected laws, initiated by ministers or parliament, which we examined in our is- 

 sues for Februarj- lyii and January and June 1916. 



