Allow me to say that I absolutely endorse the article in a recent
issue by Paul Kennaday entitled Big Business and Workmen’s
Compensation.[5] I have been acting for the Canadian Manufacturers’
Association, a body corresponding to your National Association of
Manufacturers, but more highly organized and representing a much
larger proportion of its constituency than the American body. In
fact, we represent about 85 per cent of all the manufacturers of
Canada. I say this to indicate the probability that the Canadian body
would not adopt any policy without the most careful consideration
and investigation. This body has adopted the same view as that
expressed in the article and is devoting a large amount of energy and
considerable money promoting a workmen’s compensation system of the
type of the Washington system.
There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that such a system is the
only satisfactory solution ultimate or even temporary to the problem.
This view is of course opposed by the liability insurance interests
who are conducting a carefully planned and well financed campaign
against “state insurance.”
Time and again we have had to deal with the representatives of these
insurance interests in connection with the investigation in Ontario
preliminary to the drafting of a Workmen’s Compensation Act for
that province, and I am glad to state that, generally speaking, the
motives and arguments (perfectly legitimate perhaps) of the insurance
interests are understood and rated at their proper value. I think I
have a pretty broad view of the situation in the United States and
I am sorry to say that the true position of affairs does not appear
to be generally appreciated by either the politicians or the leaders
of labor and industry. I should think it might well be one of the
functions of THE SURVEY to open up this matter.