60 HOLLAND - INSURANCE AND THRIFT 



practical nature. As we have seen, the movement in favour of this kind 

 of insurance was the result of the law of 1901. That law, which consi 1- 

 erably improved the position of the industrial workmen, threatened to 

 increase the rural exodus to the cities and industrial centres, so that it was 

 to the interest of the farmers themselves to grant their labourers a similar 

 improvement of their conditions. 



But, the danger of the introduction of compulsory centralised Gov- 

 ernment insurance was a specially strong motive urging the farmers to 

 found an institute of their own. All the agricultural associations called 

 upon to express their opinion on the matter declared that a system on the 

 plan of the industrial insurance, such as was provided in the 1905 bill, 

 would be unsuitable and undesirable. In the case of industrial insurance 

 the master retains the right to insure his labourers with the State 

 National Insurance Bank in Amsterdam, or with any other business recog- 

 nised by the State : yet every thing in the nature of inquiry into the 

 accidents and the estimation of the loss and of the amount of compens- 

 ation due is entrusted exclusively to the National Bank Such central- 

 isation in the case of agriculture, in view of the large number and the 

 scattered position of the farms, would be the cause of great inconven- 

 ience and considerable expense. It was feared that in this way the 

 insurance business would pass completely into the hands of mere em- 

 ployees and that the direct participation of the farmers, which con- 

 tributes so largely to keep down the cost and to extend the principles 

 of the society in the agricultural world, wovild cease altogether. Hence 

 the general desire of the agricultural associations is that the State should 

 indeed make it comptdsory for the farmers to ensure their labourers 

 against accidents, but that for the rest it should Hmit itself to supervising 

 the development of those forms of insurance institutes selected by the 

 farmers themselves. 



The Government Commission for Agriculture {Staats-Commissie voor den 

 Landhouw) founded in 1906 to study the question of agricultural labourers 

 was fully in accord with this idea, in its conclusions in reference to agri- 

 cultural laboturers' accident insurance. In its Rapporten en Voorstellen, 

 published in 1909, this Commission presented 18 proposals, in the first 

 place advocating the most complete decentralisation possible of the in- 

 surance system and the participation of the farmers in the management 

 of this important business. 



And, since the farmers with their insurance business have in the mean- 

 time begun their own action and given proof of their competence it 

 is very probable that when the problem comes to receive a legal solution 

 their desires will be given full consideration. 



