1903-4.] THE PRINCIPLES OF INSURANCE. 93 
I conclude with a short reference to the German system of compensation 
for accidents and for old age pensions. 
The last time I met the Hon. T. D’Arcy McGee, (just before his assassin- 
ation) I enquired what he had been doing to occupy his mind since his 
relief from political duties. He said he had been giving thought to matters 
of education, and had been reading Wilhelm Meister. To an enquiry what 
he found admirable therein, he replied that he was much impressed by a 
passage which declared that if one set a number of people in line and bade 
them put out the right arm, all together, at the word of command, the discip- 
line had an educational value, as teaching them mutual reliance and train- 
ing them to act in concert. I answered that it might also impair their 
capacity for individual action and lead to subserviency to arbitrary power. 
We did not pursue the subject, but similar considerations arise when we 
examine the German methods of providing for old age and contrast them 
with those of Great Britain, or even our own. 
The system of workmen’s insurance in the German empire is called 
a ‘“‘work of conciliation and social reform.” A bill for the insurance of 
workmen against industrial accidents was laid before the Reichstag or 
Imperial Diet in 1881 by a message from the Emperor, to impress upon that 
body, ‘‘the necessity of furthering the welfare of the working people,” 
to ‘‘render to the needy that assistance to which they are justly entitled.” 
With it went also a measure providing for a general organization of industrial 
sick relief insurance, and an intimation that a plan ought to be devised for 
giving succour to those who suffered from invalidity (inability through ill- 
ness to work) or old age. These three branches are still kept distinct, but 
after several changes and extensions, the regulations were consolidated by 
the legislation of 1893. 
I.—Accident insurance covers all workmen on wages, and with them 
are classed clerks and officials with salaries not exceeding 3,000 marks 
($750). It is paid for exclusively by employers, and the compensation 
includes free medical attendance, medicines and medical appliances, or, 
as an alternative, free hospital treatment, during the whole cure. It carries 
with it sick pay of two-thirds of the yearly wages, from the beginning of 
the fourteenth week after the accident (in continuation of the sickness 
insurance), and, in case of a fatal result, funeral expenses up to one-fifteenth 
of the yearly earnings, but not less than fifty marks, and a pension for widow 
or widower and children, or for parents or grandchildren, up to 60 per cent. 
of such yearly earnings. The employers probably consider this cheap 
insurance, for it replaces the liability toclaims at law, which is here com- 
monly covered by workmen’s insurance in accident companies. The 
employed have the advantage of feeling that as the pay comes from the 
