8.-Workmen's Compensation Schemes.

Under Section 3 (1) of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, employers may establish schemes by agreement with their workpeople, contracting out of the provisions of the Act and substituting the provisions of the schemes, provided such schemes are certified by the Registrar. The object of certification is broadly to ensure that such schemes are at least as favourable to workpeople in their provisions as the Act. STATISTICS.

The following particulars are taken from the Returns furnished for the year ended 31st December 1923 in respect of Schemes which were in active operation during the year.

Number, Duration and Cost of Cases of Incapacity from Injury completed

during the Year.

The summary deals with two schemes less than in the preceding year. Ninety-three per cent. of the workpeople employed adopted schemes, and the number contracting out of the Act was practically the same as in the preceding year. The average annual contribution per workman was 4s. 54d. to which the employers added 178. 8d. There were 5,604 cases of incapacity from injury, and 31 cases where death resulted from injury. There was thus one fatal accident for every 1,800 employees, and one case of incapacity for every 10. The average duration of cases of incapacity completed during the year by weekly payments only was 4 weeks; the average cost per case 6l. 13s. 7d.

9. Scientific and Literary Societies.

Societies instituted for purposes of science, literature, or the fine arts exclusively upon obtaining the registrar's certificate under the Scientific Societies Act, 1843, obtain exemption from local rates. During 1924 one certificate was granted to societies in England and Wales, and one complete amendment of rules was certified. In five cases certificates were refused. No certificates were granted in Scotland.

10. Trustee Savings Banks.

The functions of the Registrar in respect of Trustee Savings Banks are confined to the certification of rules and alterations of rules and the determination of disputes (see section 9). The inspection of books, accounts, &c., and other control is exercised by the Inspection Committee appointed under the Savings Banks Act, 1891. That Committee consists of seven members, one of whom is appointed by the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies.

Five amendments of Rules were certified.

11.-Disputes.

The Registrar has jurisdiction under the Savings Bank Acts to determine disputes between trustees and managers of a Trustee Savings Bank and depositors, &c., and a similar authority in relation to Post Office Savings Bank deposits. His jurisdiction has been extended by the War Loan (Supplemental Provisions) Act, 1915, Section 4, and the War Loan Act, 1918, Section 2, to disputes as to War Stock and Bonds on the Post Office Register by the War Savings Certificate Regulations, 1919, Reg. 69, to disputes as to War Savings Certificates, and by the Savings Banks Act, 1920, Section 7, to disputes as to National Savings Certificates.

The disputes relating to Savings Banks, Stock and Bonds and Savings Certificates which came before the Chief Registrar, and the Assistant Registrar for Scotland, in 1924 were :

The total amount awarded by the Chief Registrar was 13,588l. 148. Od. (exclusive of Savings Certificates), an increase of 1,6287. 17s. 4d., over the previous year and included were 20 individual amounts of 2001. and upwards. The average sum awarded was 797. 18s. 8d., as compared with 1017. 16s. 9d. in the previous year.

The total number of Savings Certificates awarded was 12,528 and the average number 147, increases of 401 and 4 respectively over the previous year.

Of the disputes heard by the Chief Registrar 76 were between parents and children, 38 between husband and wife, 34 arising out of claims by creditors (including guardians), 17 between master and servant, 12 arising out of donationes mortis causa, 9 with Trade Unions, 8 each regarding the identity of a depositor and administration, 7 relating to insanity, 6 in which death was presumed, 5 between brothers and sisters, 5 with Friendly Societies, 4 each in respect of deposits made in contemplation of marriage, disputed repayment and intestacy, 3 relating to joint accounts, 2 each arising out of disputed withdrawal, Post Office Savings Bank annuities, gift, will and charity, and 1 each concerned with Nomination-Disputed Deposit-Disputed Amount Probate-Fraud—Jurisdiction-Aunt and Niece-Forgery-Disputed Purchase-Grandmother and grandchild.

The awards made by the Assistant Registrar for Scotland amounted to 5,0761. Os. 3d. (including Savings Certificates).

Following are selected Reports of Disputes settled by the Chief Registrar during the year 1924

Cheque.

(a) POST OFFICE AND TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS.

Claim by drawer of cheque collected by a savings bank for a depositor to the balance of the latter's account under an order of the Central Criminal Court and also to the portion of the proceeds paid out to the latter, on the ground that the cheque was obtained by false pretences.

Albert Mellor. London Savings Bank, 721. 148. 6d. Hearing, 9th October; Awards, 14th October and 25th November. The Chief Registrar's written judgment was as follows:

William Plomer Hugo Rowe claims against the London Savings Bank (1) the balance standing to the credit of the account; (2) the sum of 1301. paid out by the Bank to the depositor in three sums of 501., 50l. and 301. on May 20th, 21st and 22nd last respectively.

The depositor's real name was Stanley Garner.

He wrote to the plaintiff under the name of Armstrong, Mellor & Co. in May 1924 and offered him forty £5 ordinary shares in the Falmouth Hotel, Ltd. The plaintiff sent him a cheque for £202 3s. 6d., but the shares were not delivered. On June 24th last Stanley Garner was convicted of obtaining from the plaintiff by false pretences the cheque in question with intent to defraud and the Court purported to order that the Bank should forthwith deliver the balance standing to the account to the plaintiff.

This order is inoperative without my award, but Stanley Garner does not set up any ground why I should not make the award and I therefore propose to make it. This is as far as my proper functions extend in this matter, but the parties have agreed that I should decide the second branch of the case as an ordinary arbitrator, and I am glad to be able to assist them in the matter.

On 19th May Stanley Garner called at the Bank with the cheque and asked permission to open an account with it. The cheque was a crossed cheque payable to Armstrong, Mellor & Co. and endorsed Armstrong, Mellor & Co. He asked to have an account in the name of the firm, but when he was told he could not, he opened it in what he alleged to be his own name and signed the declaration accordingly. There was, in my opinion, nothing in the transaction which was not of the ordinary course or ought to have aroused the Bank's suspicions and nothing negligent in their collecting the cheque. The whole proceeding was in accordance with the ordinary practice of bankers and of this bank in particular (see Commissioners of Taxation v. English, Scottish and Australian Bank, [1920] A.C. 683, and in particular the passage on pages 689 and 690, where the alleged negligence in that case is discussed in a passage which appears to me to be most germane to the present case).

He asked to be allowed to draw 100l. forthwith, but was told he could not until the cheque was cleared, but that, if he wished, a special clearance could be arranged for a small fee. He then applied for a special clearance, and subsequently drew out the three sums now in question. The whole transaction was an ordinary banking transaction, in my opinion, and the bank in good faith and without negligence received payment of the crossed cheque for Garner alias Mellor, who, in my opinion, was its customer.

Cheque.

Counsel for the Bank appeared to doubt whether he was a customer, following, I suppose, a similar doubt expressed in Paget on Banking. I do not share this doubt, which, even if there was a foundation for it before the decision in Commissioners of Taxation v. English, Scottish and Australian Bank, has not, I think, any foundation since that decision, in which the somewhat conflicting views expressed in Mathews v. Williams Brown & Co., 63 L.J. Q.B. 494, Lacave & Co. v. Crédit Lyonnais, [1897] 1 Q.B. 148, and Ladbroke & Co. v. Todd, 19 Com. Cas. 256 were cited. I refer to the following passage at p. 687 :

"Their Lordships are of opinion that the word 'customer' signifies a relationship in which duration is not of the essence. A person whose money has been accepted by a bank on the footing that they undertake to honour cheques up to the amount standing to his credit is, in the view of their Lordships, a customer of the bank in the sense of the statute, irrespective of whether his connection is of short or long standing. The contrast is not between an habitué and a newcomer, but between a person for whom the bank performs a casual service, such as, for instance, cashing a cheque for a person introduced by one of their customers, and a person who has an account of his own at the bank."

In that case, it is true, the person who presented the cheque, opened his account with 207. in cash, and on the next day paid in the disputed cheque, but on the principles laid down in the passage which I have quoted there is nothing to distinguish such a case from a case where the account was actually opened with the disputed cheque.

Indeed the speech of Lord Davey in Great Western Railway v. London and County Banking Co., [1901] A.C. 414, at p. 420, seems to me to point to the same conclusion :

It is true that there is no definition of customer in the Act, but it is a well-known expression, and I think that there must be some sort of account, either a deposit or a current account or some similar relation, to make a man a customer of a banker," and there is nothing inconsistent with this in the other speeches. This was the case on which the applicant in the present case relied, but it does not appear to me to have the effect which he attributed to it. The main point was whether or not the person who presented the cheque was a customer of the Bank. Bigham J. and the Court of Appeal, for reasons which I most respectfully express myself to be totally unable to understand, held that he was, the House of Lords held that he was not. They therefore deprived the Bank of the protection of Section 82 of the Bills of Exchange Act, 1882, and the rest of the decision followed as a matter of course. As I hold Garner alias Mellor in this case to have been a customer, and that the bank in good faith and without negligence received payment of a crossed cheque for him, the fact that he had no title or a defective title to the cheque did not impose on the bank any liability to the true owner of the cheque by reason only of its having received such payment, and it is not suggested that it did anything else which involved it in liability.

I am therefore absolved from having to discuss the other matters which were raised at the hearing and dismiss this portion of the application with costs to be agreed between the parties or settled by me if the parties differ. I shall withhold my award on the other portion of the application