of the Coal Mines Acts with reference to payment by weight, or
legalize any deductions, from payments made, in pursuance of those
provisions. The powers and duties of inspectors are extended to
cover the case of a laundry, and of any place where work is given out
by the occupier of a factory or workshop or by a contractor or sub-contractor.
Power is reserved for the secretary of state to exempt
by order specified trades or branches of them in specified areas from
the provisions of the act of 1896, if he is satisfied that they are unnecessary
for the protection of the workmen. This power has been
exercised only in respect of one highly organized industry, the
Lancashire cotton industry. The effect of the exemption is not to
prevent fines and deductions from being made, but the desire for
it demonstrated that there are cases where leaders among workers
have felt competent to make their own terms on their own lines
without the specific conditions laid down in this act. The reports
of the inspectors of factories have demonstrated that in other industries
much work has had to be done under this act, and knowledge
of a highly technical character to be gradually acquired, before
opinions could be formed as to the reasonableness and fairness, or
the contrary, of many forms of deduction. Owing partly to difficulties
of legal interpretation involving the necessity of taking test
cases into court, partly to the margin for differences of opinion as to
what constitutes “reasonableness” in a deduction, the average
number of convictions obtained on prosecutions is not so high as
under the Factory Acts, though the average penalty imposed is
higher. In 1904, 61 cases were taken into court resulting in 34
convictions with an average penalty of £1, 10s. In 1905, 38 cases
resulting in 34 convictions were taken with an average penalty of
£1, 3s. In 1906, 37 cases resulting in 25 convictions were taken with
an average penalty of £1, 10s.
Reference should here be made to the Shop Clubs Act of 1902 as closely allied with some of the provisions of the Truck Acts by its provision that employers shall not make it a condition of employment that any workman shall become a member of a shop club unless it is registered under the Friendly Societies Act of 1896. As in the case of payment of wages in Public Houses Act, no special inspectorate has the duty of enforcing this act.
III. Continental Europe
In comparing legislation affecting factories, mines, shops and truck in the chief industrial countries of the continent with that of Great Britain, it is essential to a just view that inquiry should be extended beyond the codes themselves to the general social order and system of law and administration in each country. Further, special comparison of the definitions and the sanctions of each industrial code must be recognized as necessary, for these vary in all. In so brief a summary as is appended here no more is possible than an outline indication of the main general requirements and prohibitions of the laws as regards: (1) hours and times of employment, (2) ordinary sanitation and special requirements for unhealthy and dangerous industries, (3) security against accidents, and (4) prevention of fraud and oppression in fulfilment of wage contracts. As regards the first of these subdivisions, in general in Europe the ordinary legal limit is rather wider than in Great Britain, being in several countries not less than 11 hours a day, and while in some, as in France, the normal limit is 10 hours daily, yet the administrative discretion in granting exceptions is rather more elastic. The weekly half-holiday is a peculiarly British institution. On the other hand, in several European countries, notably France, Austria, Switzerland and Russia, the legal maximum day applies to adult as well as youthful labour, and not only to specially protected classes of persons. As regards specialized sanitation for unhealthy factory industries, German regulations appear to be most nearly comparable with British. Mines’ labour regulation in several countries, having an entirely different origin linked with ownership of mines, is only in few and most recent developments comparable with British Mines Regulation Acts. In regulation of shops, Germany, treating this matter as an integral part of her imperial industrial code, has advanced farther than has Great Britain. In truck legislation most European countries (with the exception of France) appear to have been influenced by the far earlier laws of Great Britain, although in some respects Belgium, with her rapid and recent industrial development, has made interesting original experiments. The rule of Sunday rest (see Sunday) has been extended in several countries, most recently in Belgium and Spain. In France this partially attempted rule has been so modified as to be practically a seventh day rest, not necessarily Sunday.
France.—Hours of labour were, in France, first limited in factories (usines et manufactures) for adults by the law of the 9th of September 1848 to 12 in the 24. Much uncertainty existed as to the class of workplaces covered. Finally, in 1885, an authoritative decision defined them as including: (1) Industrial establishments with motor power or continual furnaces, (2) workshops employing over 20 workers. In 1851, under condition of notification to the local authorities, exceptions, still in force, were made to the general limitation, in favour of certain industries or processes, among others for letterpress and lithographic printing, engineering works, work at furnaces and in heating workshops, manufacture of projectiles of war, and any work for the government in the interests of national defence or security. The limit of 12 hours was reduced, as regards works in which women or young workers are employed, in 1900 to 11, and was to be successively reduced to 1012 hours and to 10 hours at intervals of two years from April 1900. This labour law for adults was preceded in 1841 by one for children, which prevented their employment in factories before 8 years of age and prohibited night labour for any child under 13. This was strengthened in 1874, particularly as regards employment of girls under 21, but it was not until 1892 that the labour of women was specially regulated by a law, still in force, with certain amendments in 1900. Under this law factory and workshop labour is prohibited for children under 13 years, though they may begin at 12 if qualified by the prescribed educational certificate and medical certificate of fitness. The limit of daily hours of employment is the same as for adult labour, and, similarly, from the 1st of April 1902 was 1012, and two years later became 10 hours in the 24. Notice of the hours must be affixed, and meal-times or pauses with absolute cessation of work of at least one hour must be specified. By the act of 1892 one day in the week, not necessarily Sunday, had to be given for entire absence from work, in addition to eight recognized annual holidays, but this was modified by a law of 1906 which generally requires Sunday rest, but allows substitution of another day in certain industries and certain circumstances. Night labour—work between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.—is prohibited for workers under 18, and only exceptionally permitted, under conditions, for girls and women over 18 in specified trades. In mines and underground quarries employment of women and girls is prohibited except at surface works, and at the latter is subject to the same limits as in factories. Boys of 13 may be employed in certain work underground, but under 16 may not be employed more than 8 hours in the 24 from bank to bank. A law of 1905 provided for miners a 9 hours’ day and in 1907 an 8 hours’ day from the foot of the entrance gallery back to the same point.
As in Great Britain, distinct services of inspection enforce the law in factories and mines respectively. In factories and workshops an inspector may order re-examination as to physical fitness for the work imposed of any worker under 16; certain occupations and processes are prohibited—e.g. girls under 16 at machines worked by treadles, and the weights that may be lifted, pushed or carried by girls or boys under 18 are carefully specified. The law applies generally to philanthropic and religious institutions where industrial work is carried on, as in ordinary trading establishments; and this holds good even if the work is by way of technical instruction. Domestic workshops are not controlled unless the industry is classed as dangerous or unhealthy; introduction of motor power brings them under inspection. General sanitation in industrial establishments is provided for in a law of 1893, amended in 1903, and is supplemented by administrative regulations for special risks due to poisons, dust, explosive substances, gases, fumes, &c. Ventilation, both general and special, lighting, provision of lavatories, cloakrooms, good drinking water, drainage and cleanliness are required in all workplaces, shops, warehouses, restaurant kitchens, and where workers are lodged by their employers hygienic conditions are prescribed for dormitories. In many industries women, children and young workers are either absolutely excluded from specified unhealthy processes, or are admitted only under conditions. As regards shops and offices, the labour laws are: one which protects apprentices against overwork (law of 22nd February 1851), one (law of 29th December 1900) which requires that seats shall be provided for women and girls employed in retail sale of articles, and a decree of the 28th of July 1904 defining in detail conditions of hygiene in dormitories for workmen and shop assistants. The law relating to seats is enforced by the inspectors of factories. In France there is no special penal legislation against abuses of the truck system, or excessive fines and deductions from wages, although bills with that end in view have frequently been before parliament. Indirect protection to workers is no doubt in many cases afforded in organized industries by the action of the Conseils de Prud’hommes.
Belgium.—In 1848 in Belgium the Commission on Labour proposed legislation to limit, as in France, the hours of labour for adults, but this proposal was never passed. Belgian regulation of labour in industry remains essentially, in harmony with its earliest beginnings in 1863 and onwards, a series of specialized provisions to meet particular risks of individual trades, and did not, until 1889, give any adherence to a common principle of limitation of hours and times of labour for “protected” persons. This was in the law of the 13th of December 1889, which applies to mines, quarries, factories, workshops classed as unhealthy, wharves and docks, transports. As in France, industrial establishments having a charitable or philanthropic
