Our lack of experience in these matters has also induced us to be very careful about the assessment of the necessary contributions.  I certainly should not have the courage to press this bill if the expenses which it entails were to be borne exclusively by the various industries.  If the assistance which the State would render—­either by provincial or county associations, or directly—­were to be entirely omitted, I should not dare to answer to our industries for the consequences of this law.  Perhaps this can be done, and after a few years of experience we may be able to judge whether it is possible.  The State contribution, therefore, may be limited at first to three years, or to whatever period you wish.  But without any actual experience, without any practical test of what we are to expect, I do not dare to burden our industries with all the expenses of this government-institution, and to add to their taxes.  I do not dare to place upon them the whole burden of caring for the injured factory or mill hands.  The county associations used to do this, and in the future it will be done more fully and in a more dignified way by the insurers and the State.

No entirely new charges are here contemplated; the charges are merely transferred from the county associations to the State.  I do not deny that the tax of him who pays and the advantages which accrue to the laborer will be increased.  The increase, however, does not equal the full third which the State is to bear, but only the difference between what at present the county associations are obliged to do for the injured workingmen, and what these men will receive in future.  You see, it is purely a question of improving the lot of the laboring man.  This difference, therefore, is the only new charge on the State, with which you have to reckon.  And you will have to ask yourselves:  “Is the advantage gained worth this difference,—­when we aim to procure for the laborer who has been injured a better and more adequate support, and relieve him of the necessity of having to fight for his right in court, and when he will receive without delay the moderate stipend which the State decrees?” I feel like answering the question with a strong affirmative.

Our present poor laws keep the injured laboring man from starvation.  According to law, at least, nobody need starve.  Whether in reality this never happens I do not know.  But this is not enough in order to let the men look contentedly into the future and to their own old age.  The present bill intends to keep the sense of human dignity alive which even the poorest German should enjoy, if I have my way.  He should feel that he is no mere eleemosynary, but that he possesses a fund which is his very own.  No one shall have the right to dispose of it, or to take it from him, however poor he may be.  This fund will open for him many a door, which otherwise will remain closed to him and it will secure for him better treatment in the house where he has been received, because when he leaves he can take away with him whatever contributions he has been making to the household expenses.