NOTES AND ABSTRACTS.
Inspection of Labor in France. I. The application and enforcement of labor legislation in France depend upon an organized inspection service. Three stages in labor legislation may be distinguished by the following laws: (i) The law of 1841, putting limitations upon the labor of children; (2) the law of 1874, taking account of sex as well as age, and interdicting to women certain forms of labor; (3) the law of 1892, extending great protection to children and women, and affecting all cate- gories of laborers by its regulations concerning hygiene and safety. II. Each of these legislative periods has had a corresponding form of inspection service. The execution of the law of 1841 was successively intrusted to local, unsalaried com- missions, examiners of weights and measures, inspectors of education, and mining engineers all of which methods proved unsuccessful. The law of 1874 created fifteen inspectors to be appointed by the central government ; departmental and local inspectors, to be chosen by their respective divisions and to serve under the general inspectors. But under this plan the number of inspectors was too small, lack of harmony resulted from the different methods of appointment, and continuity was wanting in the local officials. III. The existing organization of the inspection service, according to the law of 1892, attempts to correct these imperfections. The whole sen-ice is a unit. Both divisional and departmental inspectors are appointed by the central government, the latter being subordinate to the former. There are eleven divisional and ninety-two departmental inspectors. The local commissions have a uniform organ- ization and are reduced to mere consulting bodies. Inspectors are appointed on the basis of merit determined by examination, and are promoted through grades accord- ing to length of service. Salaries are, according to grade, 2400 to 5000 francs for departmental, and 6000 to 8000 francs for divisional inspectors. IV. Inspectors have the power to enter establishments enumerated by the law and to prove violations of the law by verbal process, and the duty to receive statements, to make inquiry in case of accidents, and to compile stastistics of the conditions of labor in their districts. Divisional inspectors have the exclusive right to authorize certain exceptional violations contemplated by the law and determined by rules of the public administration. They thus have large latitude of action, especially with reference to night work and the number of hours of labor. V. The present organization is too new to have final criti cism as to its success passed upon it. Two things, however, may be said. In the first place, the number of establishments to be visited and the constantly increasing impor- tance of the objects which demand attention render inspection very difficult and in com plete. In the second place, the obstructive attitude of employers, the negligent inaction of laborers, who seem to think that they are being protected too much, and the hostility of various administrations, to which labor legislation is a novelty all these add greatly to the difficulties of successful inspection of labor. MAURICE VANLAKH, La Rtformt socialt, 1 6 Novembre 1897.
The Psychological Bases of Sociology (concluded). \ . The individual con sciousness alone can be considered as the sufficient reason for the existence of social phenomena and as their sole source. Nevertheless, it is impossible to identify social with psychic phenomena, to consider them as nothing but a multiple repetition of individual ideas and sentiments, and to treat the social life merely as a branch of psychology. For many of our mental desires and mental slates never become social phenomena. The mere fact of the coexistence of the same conscious state in several individuals does not change its nature as nn individual psychic fact, until this <
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