Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/246

THE BELGIAN LAW OF 1903 by the organization. In no case is it to be less than 300,000 or more than 1,500,000 francs. By merely joining such an organ ization or insuring in such a company em ployers are relieved of all obligations to their workmen and the liability at once passes to the insurer. This law of Dec. 24, 1903, deals with compensation for accidents to workmen in certain -industries only, happening in the course of and as a result of the execution of the contract of employment, governed by the law of March 10, 1900. An accident hap pening in the course of the employment is presumed, until the contrary is proved, to have occurred as a result of it. (Arti cle i.) In article 2 are enumerated the private or public industries subjected to the new law. They are as follows : Deep and surface mines and quarries; coke kilns, factories making coal compounds; furnaces and shops for the preparation of ores and quarry products. Blast furnaces, steel works, shops making and fashioning iron and other metals; foun dries. The making of machinery and metal pro ducts; iron mills; shops making hardware, locks, stoves; the working of metals, manu facture of bolts, nails, screws, chains, wire, cables, weapons, knives, and other metal utensils or objects. Mirror and window glass factories, glassblowing establishments, crystal works, gob let works; the manufacture of pottery products. The manufacture of chemical products, gas and its by-products, explosives, matches, oils, tapers, soaps, paints and varnishes, rubber, paper. Tanneries and currying shops. Flour mills; breweries; malt works; dis tilleries; the manufacture of charged waters; sugar manufacture. Mason work, carpenter work, painting and other branches of the building industry; chimney cleaning; grading, well-digging.

221

paving, roadmaking, and other branches of civil engineering. Forest industries. Transportation by land of passengers and goods; inland navigation; towing from path, and by boats; dredging; storing, packings loading and unloading goods. Businesses which require the use of steam, air, gas, or electric power of a pressure or voltage beyond a limit to be fixed by royal decree. And, generally, businesses using (for more than temporary purposes) machinery run by other than animal or human power. Then the industrial enterprises not in cluded in the above categories, but which employ habitually five workmen at least. And agricultural enterprises employing ha bitually at least three workmen. Likewise mercantile establishments, with at least three employees. Lastly, enterprises not covered expressly by the law but the dangerous character of which shall have been recognized by royal decree, on the advice of the commission on accidents to workmen. Heads of businesses covered by Article 2 are compulsorily subjected to the provisions of the new law. Others, for example those employing ordinarily only two workmen in an agricultural enterprise, or four in an industrial one, and some in businesses not subjected to the new law, may submit to its provisions, although they are not obliged to do so. Such submission will- benefit them in a way which we shall examine. Under the former system, it was often difficult for the workman to establish the justice of his claim, but, once the court had recognized the liability of the master, the workman got full compensation for all the injury suffered. The new law relieves the workman of this onerous burden of proof by decreeing that he shall in all cases be compensated when an accident happens in the corse of the eumployment. All he will have to do, therefore, will be to prove his injury, and by the very fact the master (or