sation has been created. This need has been brought about by changes in industrial relations and by the introduction of machinery. Alongside the industrial development there has grown up a new body of social thought demanding recognition of changed conditions and seeking some means of providing adequate and just compensation for workmen who suffer loss through industrial accidents.

Changes in Industrial Relations.-The change from the domestic system of industry to the factory system involved a complete reorganization of the personal factors in industry and created those labor problems which are due to the differentiation of employer and employed. It is natural that the law of master and servant should have developed pari passu with the factory system and with the increasing opposition of interests of the two great social classes. The feeling of opposition and the disputes and injustice which have arisen from it were inherent in the growth of a new method of conducting business, one in which the principals were not properly orientated. The change in industrial relations evolved in three different aspects:

1. Under the domestic system all work was done on a personal basis, the workman was a member of his employer's family and the employer was no more than a highly developed workman. It was quite possible for any artisan, having passed through the stages of apprentice and journeyman, to become a master himself. Socially all were on the same level and personal and industrial interests were mutual. In case of injury and sickness the master was expected to care

for the members alike of his industrial and of his family group. But the factory system demanded capital, usually more than any one man was prepared to furnish, and the modern corporation was created to satisfy the demand. The corporation consists of a group of men who furnish capital and whose chief interest is in the financial side of a business, the actual carrying on of technical processes usually being entrusted to a hired manager who, in turn, in a large undertaking, delegates his functions to assistant managers, superintendents, and foremen. Hence the personal element in industrial relations largely disappears-even personal acquaintance between master and man vanishes. With the personal element gone the mutual interest which prompted aid and care is also lost. The employer now looks on his business as a means of acquiring wealth and power and the workman seeks to secure the largest possible return from a minimum amount of labor. The manager's remuneration is based on his efficiency in returning profits to the employer and his interests naturally lead him to conduct the business at the lowest possible cost. Aid in any appreciable amount has, until very recently at least, usually been denied to injured workmen and their families unless forced by a decree of the court. Compensation for industrial accidents has been regarded as an unwarranted expense totally opposed to the interests of the employer, who was not conscious of any direct personal relationship with his employee.

2. Industrial relations have become not only impersonal but highly complicated. Division of labor has necessitated the creation of many departments in an

industry, each employing a group of laborers and each contributing a share of the work necessary to manufacture a finished product. The heads of departments are responsible to the superintendent of the plant, the superintendent to the manager, and the manager to the board of directors, which represents the stockholders. Besides those concerned directly with the finished. product of the industry, there are other groups which have a relation to the plant as a whole, repair men, construction gangs, and men concerned with motive power and its transmission.

Such conditions are responsible in a high degree for rendering unsatisfactory a system of compensation based on employers' liability. Employers' liability is governed by the principle of personal fault and in order to establish the existence of fault it is necessary to prove that an injury was caused wholly and directly by a particular person. The complicated relationships of the modern factory system have rendered this practically impossible, since the cause of almost every accident is a complex of the actions or neglect of a great number of persons, principals and subordinates.

3. In order to bring productive organization to its highest efficiency it has been found necessary to integrate and consolidate industry and to arrange the units of a large corporation so that each will contribute its utmost to the final product. In this process organization as such has come to mean more to the success of an undertaking than any other feature. The importance of organization which has carried with it definite rules and plans has meant the still further repression of the individual and has minimized his con

tribution to the final result. The individual has been lost in the mass and the removal of a workman and substitution of another is now a less significant occurrence than formerly.

Change from Handicraft to Machinery.—The prime factor in the establishment of the present industrial system was the introduction of machinery and the substitution of mechanical power for manual labor. This has had two general effects which bear directly on the problem of industrial accidents:

I. The risk of accident has become greater; positively, through the introduction of dangerous machinery and increased speed of operation, and negatively, through the lowered skill of the workman and the employment of untrained immigrant labor. The improvement of methods in the steel industry and the progress of invention have constantly enlarged and complicated machines, and every enlargement and complication has increased the danger to the operator. Superior organizations, improvements in mechanical arts, and the production of finer grades of construction materials have increased the speed at which machines have been operated and have rendered less deliberate the movements of attendants. The invention of machines to perform delicate technical processes formerly accomplished only through hand work has made possible the employment of a lower grade of laborers, at once less able and less careful. The inability of immigrant laborers to understand the English language has been another factor in increasing the probability of accident occurrence.

2. The use of machinery to perform the greater

part of work once done by hand has contributed with the development of organization to the repression of the individual. The workman in many industries acts merely as a feeder and attendant to the machine, the mechanism of which now accomplishes the larger and more technical part of the work. Good machines are more important than skilled workmen and they have absorbed much of the attention formerly given to selecting and caring for individual employees.

The Growth of Cities.-The growth of cities with large manufacturing populations should be noted in connection with industrial accidents, for it has aggravated the severity of the problem. Wages in cities seldom exceed the minimum necessary to sustain life, and preclude effective help being given an injured workman by others of his class, a condition obtaining to a much less degree in the country. If a man is not totally disabled he is usually able to scrape together a bare living himself in the country districts, but this is not true of the congested areas of large cities.

New Social Ideas.-Changes in industrial conditions have made old theories and methods of accident compensation largely nugatory in actual practice; at the same time new social ideas have gained currency which have resulted in an almost complete reversal of attitude on the part of economists, legislators, and even employers:

1. The generally accepted theory of the limitations on governmental action has undergone a considerable development. It is still agreed that the government should undertake only those tasks which can be more effectively accomplished by its agency and can not well