first, for the payment of compensation to employees injured in certain
extra-hazordous employments, and to their dependents in case of death;
second, that all employers in such occupations shall secure the payment
of such compensation by insuring their liability in a stock company,
or the State Accident Fund, or by proving to the satisfaction of the
Commission their financial ability to pay the compensation.

The business of the Commission is to administer the Workmen's
Compensation Act and involves determining what occupations are in-
cluded, receiving reports of accidents, receiving, investigating and
adjudicating claims arising under the Act. Hearings are held in con-
tested cases. In addition to these duties, the Commission administers
the State Accident Fund, which is provided by the Act as one of the
methods by which employers must insure.

During the year ending October 31, 1927, there was a total of
45,927 industrial accidents reported to the Commission. This was an
increase of 4,311 cases over the number reported in the preceding year.
Out of this number there were 15,322 claims filed for compensation, of
which 189 were claims in fatal accidents, as against 15,499 claims filed
during the year ending October 31, 1926, 162 of which were claims in
fatal cases. As a result of last year's work, there was paid out to
injured employees and their dependents the sum of $1,516,593.20, which
included the payment of compensation, funeral and medical expenses,
etc. In addition to the amount herein mentioned, there was $339,000.33
paid for medical expenses in cases where there was no claim for
compensation.

When the General Assembly of Maryland in 1914 passed the Work-
men's Compensation Act, they recognized the fact that employers might
be put in the position where they would not be able to comply with
the Act due to the fact that the private insurance companies would
refuse to carry their risk. Furthermore, they felt that inasmuch as
this form of insurance was compulsory under the State Law, that they
should provide a place where the insurance could be secured at prac-
tically the cost of writing this form of insurance. They, therefore,
created the State Accident Fund to be administered by the State Indus-
trial Accident Commission.

This Fund started business on November 1, 1914, the day the Law
went into effect. Its beginning was small and the money available at
that time consisted of premiums paid into the Fund by those insured
with it, which premiums were based on an advance estimate of the
payrolls of the insuring employers for a period of four months. The
State Industrial Accident Commission transferred from the funds
alloted to it by the State of Maryland the amount of $15,000.00 for
the purpose of maintaining the solvency of the Fund. A few years later
this amount was returned to the State of Maryland.

During the first few years of the Fund's operations the principal
business carried on its books was coal mining operations, and the Fund
during these first few years was a comparatively amall writer of com-
pensation insurance, the large bulk of the business having been secured
by the private insurance companies operating in the State. This condi-
tion gradually changed from year to year, and, while the Fund still
carries the risks of most of the coal operators in the State, there has
been a gradual transferring of the risks of other industries to the Fund
of a very desirable character, and at the close of the last fiscal year,
October 31, 1927, the State Accident Fund had become the largest
writer of compensation insurance, from a point of premiums written.
in Maryland.