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compensation would, tends to make them less careful in themselves and more disposed to conceal want of care in others.
I say, then, that the proposal to make the master liable to a servant for the negligence of a fellow servant, is contrary to principle, unjust, unreasonable, and calculated to produce, if not no good, at least more harm than good. It would be better to make servants liable to their masters for the damage caused by their fellows, than to make masters liable to them as proposed.
One word as to the Government Bill. Its provisions are needless or wrong. If the master, by an act of omission fails in his duty to a servant, he is liable, whether the failure was in himself personally, in his manager, or other agent. If the injury arises from an act of commission, then the reasoning I have used is applicable. Let the actual wrong-doer be responsible. No servant is bound to obey a command attended with danger.
One word more. It is proposed to guard the master by provisions that he shall not be liable if the servant contributed to the injury. There are other qualifications. In vain. The untruths told in accident cases are prodigious. They will be told in such as the Bill will give rise to. I foresee a frightful crop of litigation if it passes.
