Taking the case of a small works, like, for instance, my own, where there are only about 100 men employed, the three years' average gives a totally false basis. There was one unfortunate fatal accident in connection with a process in a coal pit, which I will not mention because I am personally interested in it; but there had not been a fatal accident in connection with that process for eight years. Except in very large industries or very large units, where there are hundreds or thousands of men employed, it would not answer For one employer to take a three years' average is a most unsound procedure in a matter of this sort. The one and only solid and sound basis is to make the employer who employs the men responsible for them, and no employer of labour can allege that that puts too hard a burden upon him. The premiums for insurance against injury to workmen, both minor and fatal injuries, are so comparatively small as compared with the output of the men themselves, that it is perfectly ludicrous to try to dodge that liability in any way or to spread it over the whole industry. In just the same way, if you introduce any system of State insurance in this matter, you are relieving the man who really ought to pay, and I say, as an employer, that it is no business whatsoever of the taxpayer to contribute to this. If you say that by law the employer is responsible for the whole damage, and even if the employer wishes himself to pay for the whole damage, a very considerable portion of the burden is going to come upon the community, whether you wish it to or not. All these things are bound to spread themselves over the whole, community, no matter what you do. You may say that in calling upon people to pay some tax or rate you are taking the money for some social service, but actually that amount is spread over the whole of the producers of this country; and it is the same in all these State insurance schemes. Whatever dodges are proposed to relieve the people who really ought to pay, and by whatever dodge the taxpayer, of all persons in the world, is dragged in, it is a gross injustice that any taxpayer outside my industry or my employment should be expected to contribute to the insurance premiums which I pay to save my men from privation in cases of accident, and I do hope that hon. Members opposite will endeavour, if they can, to agree with me in this, as I have gone so far in agreement with them tonight, that it is we employers who must pay for this risk, and any system by which we do not do so is based upon a totally unsound principle.