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 THE GREEN BAG the mutual organization or insurance com cines caused by the accident and incurred pany with which he is connected) will be during the first six months. The injured compelled to give compensation. But the man may choose his doctor and druggist law here makes a compromise : The compen unless the employer has established such a sation to which the injured person will be service at his own expense and has so noti entitled will not be complete as formerly, fied his workmen. When the workman has and its amount will not be left to the in the choice of doctor and druggist, the mas dependent judgment of the courts. In the ter is liable for the expense only to the first place, none is due when inability to extent of the sum fixed by a schedule estab work has lasted less than one week. But lished by royal decree. Examination of Article 4 decrees that when the accident has these different schedules would require too resulted in a temporary total inability to much space for the scope of this article. The new law does not cover injury caused work lasting more than a week, the injured person shall be entitled, from the day follow intentionally by the employer. In such ing the accident, to a daily indemnity equal cases the general rules of civil liability are to be applied. Moreover, the injured man, to fifty per cent of his average daily wage. If temporary disability is, or becomes, or his representatives, retains the right to partial, the compensation shall be fifty per seek compensation according to the ordi cent of the difference between the pay of nary law from anybody responsible for an the injured man before the accident and accident, except the master or his foremen what he can earn before complete recovery. and workmen. In order to prevent at If the disability is, or becomes, permanent, tempts by employers to escape the applica an annual allowance of fifty per cent, de tion of the law by means of agreements termined according to the degree of the dis that it shall not govern, Article 23 enacts ability, as just explained, will take the place that any agreement contrary to its pro of the temporary indemnity, beginning from visions is absolutely null and void. As this new law went into effect only on the day when, either by agreement of the July i, 1905, it would be premature to criti parties or a final judgment, it shall be de cise it now, and we must wait, in order to cided that the disability is of a permanent form a judgment as to its results, until the character. courts have had to deal with the questions The indemnity is thus fixed by the law to which it must inevitably give rise. It is itself. The employer must, according to on the whole well received, especially by the the new law, not only give compensation for the injury, but he is also liable for the working classes. expenses for medical attendance and medi BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, February, 1906.