United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions

Lord Macnaghten—I do not think that your Lordships need be troubled with the consideration of any questions of political economy or with the provisions of the Truck Act. The Truck Act was passed for a wholly different purpose, and it uses different expressions from those which we find in the statute which we have now to construe. The sole question which your Lordships have to consider is what is the meaning of the word “earnings” in the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897. There is no definition of that word, nor is there anything said about deductions. I think that the word “earnings” is used in the schedule not in the sense in which economical writers use it, but in a popular sense. It is to be observed that it is a rough measure; the object of the Act is to ascertain somewhat roughly what is the proper compensation to be made in a case of accident resulting in death. It is not an accurate measure at all; it is only a rough measure between two extreme limits—the limit of £150 and the limit of £300. In my opinion the word is used in a popular sense—in the vernacular in fact. I think that if a miner were asked what his earnings were, he would name the whole sum which he received without any deduction. He might add that he had to pay so much for his lamp-oil and his pick-sharpening, and so on, but I think that the word is used to cover the whole sum of his earnings. I do not think that the point can be put very much better than it is put in the decision of the County Court Judge—“I would add that a lamp and picks in proper working order seem to be looked upon in the trade as being part of the necessary equipment of a miner, to be provided by him or at his cost, without them he would not be considered to be a properly equipped miner, and I should say the word “earnings” means the sum the

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