and Checkweighing Clauses of the Coal Mines Acts 1896, Memorandum
relating to the Truck Acts, by Sir Kenelm Digby, with text of
Acts (1897).
Continental Europe: Annuaire de la législation du travail (Bruxelles, 1898–1905); Hygiène et sécurité des travailleurs dans les ateliers industriels (Paris, 1895); Bulletin de l’inspection du travail (Paris, 1895–1902); Bulletin de l’office international du travail (Paris, 1902–1906); Congrès international de législation du travail (1898); Die Gewerbeordnung für das deutsche Reich. (1) Landmann (1897); (2) Neukamp (1901); Gesetz betr. Kinderarbeit in gewerblichen Betrieben, 30. März 1903; Konrad Agahd, Manz’sche Gesetzausgabe, erster Band und siebenter Band (Wien, 1897–1898); Legge sugli infortunii del lavoro (Milan, 1900).
United States: See the Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor (1907) giving all labour laws in force in the United States in 1907, with annotations of decisions of courts; bimonthly Bulletins of the U.S. Bureau of Labor, containing laws passed since those published in the foregoing, and decisions of courts relating to employers and employés; also special articles in these Bulletins on “Employer and Employé under the Common Law” (No. 1), “Protection of Workmen in their Employment” (No. 26), “Government Industrial Arbitration” (No. 60), “Laws relating to the Employment of Women and Children, and to Factory Inspection and the Health and Safety of Employés” (No. 74), “Wages and Hours of Labor in Manufacturing Industries, 1890 to 1907” (No. 77), “Review of Labor Legislation of 1908 and 1909” (No. 85); also “Report of the Industrial Commission on Labor Legislation” (vol. v., U.S. Commission’s Report); C. D. Wright, Industrial Evolution in the United States (1887); Stimson, Handbook to the Labor Laws of the United States, and Labor in its Relation to Law; Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems; Labatt, Commentaries on the Law of Master and Servant.
LABOUR PARTY, in Great Britain, the name given to the party in parliament composed of working-class representatives. As the result of the Reform Act of 1884, extending the franchise to a larger new working-class electorate, the votes of “labour” became more and more a matter of importance for politicians; and the Liberal party, seeking for the support of organized labour in the trade unions, found room for a few working-class representatives, who, however, acted and voted as Liberals. It was not till 1893 that the Independent Labour party, splitting off under Mr J. Keir Hardie (b. 1856) from the socialist organization known as the Social Democratic Federation (founded 1881), was formed at Bradford, with the object of getting independent candidates returned to parliament on a socialist programme. In 1900 Mr Keir Hardie, who as secretary of the Lanarkshire
Miners’ Union had stood unsuccessfully as a labour candidate
for Mid-Lanark in 1888, and sat as M.P. for West Ham in
1892–1895, was elected to parliament for Merthyr-Tydvil by its
efforts, and in 1906 it obtained the return of 30 members, Mr
Keir Hardie being chairman of the group. Meanwhile in 1899
the Trade Union Congress instructed its parliamentary committee
to call a conference on the question of labour representation;
and in February 1900 this was attended by trade union
delegates and also by representatives of the Independent Labour
party, the Social Democratic Federation and the Fabian Society.
A resolution was carried “to establish a distinct labour group
in parliament, who shall have their own whips, and agree upon
their own policy, which must embrace a readiness to co-operate
with any party which for the time being may be engaged in
promoting legislation in the direct interest of labour,” and the
committee (the Labour Representation Committee) was elected
for the purpose. Under their auspices 29 out of 51 candidates
were returned at the election of 1906. These groups were distinct
from the Labour members (“Lib.-Labs”) who obeyed the Liberal
whips and acted with the Liberals. In 1908 the attempts to
unite the parliamentary representatives of the Independent
Labour party with the Trades Union members were successful.
In June of that year the Miners’ Federation, returning 15
members, joined the Independent Labour party, now known
for parliamentary purposes as the “Labour Party”; other
Trades Unions, such as the Amalgamated Society of Railway
Servants, took the same step. This arrangement came into
force at the general election of 1910, when the bulk of the
miners’ representatives signed the constitution of the Labour
party, which after the election numbered 40 members of parliament.
LABRADOR,[1] a great peninsula in British North America, bounded E. by the North Atlantic, N. by Hudson Strait, W.
by Hudson and James Bays, and S. by an arbitrary line extending
eastwards from the south-east corner of Hudson Bay, near 51°
N., to the mouth of the Moisie river, on the Gulf of St Lawrence,
in 50° N., and thence eastwards by the Gulf of St Lawrence. It
extends from 50° to 63° N., and from 55° to 80° W., and embraces
an approximate area of 511,000 sq. m. Recent explorations
and surveys have added greatly to the knowledge of this vast
region, and have shown that much of the peninsula is not a
land of “awful desolation,” but a well-wooded country, containing
latent resources of value in its forests, fisheries and minerals.
Physical Geography.—Labrador forms the eastern limb of the V in the Archaean protaxis of North America (see Canada), and includes most of the highest parts of that area. Along some portions of the coasts of Hudson and also of Ungava Bay there is a fringe of lowland, but most of the interior is a plateau rising toward the south and east. The highest portion extends east and west between 52° and 54° N., where an immense granite area lies between the headwaters of the larger rivers of the four principal drainage basins; the lowest area is between Hudson Bay and Ungava Bay in the north-west, where the general level is not more than 500 ft. above the sea. The only mountains are the range along the Atlantic coast, extending from the Strait of Belle Isle to Cape Chidley; in their southern half they rarely exceed 1500 ft., but increase in the northern half to a general elevation of upwards of 2000 ft., with numerous sharp peaks between 3000 and 5000 ft., some say 7000 or 8000 ft. The coasts are deeply indented by irregular bays and fringed with rocky islands, especially along the high Atlantic coast, where long narrow fiords penetrate inland. Hamilton Inlet, 250 m. north of the Strait of Belle Isle, is the longest of these bays, with a length of 150 m. and a breadth varying from 2 to 30 m. The surface of the outer portions of the plateau is deeply seamed by valleys, cut into the crystalline rocks by the natural erosion of rivers, depending for their length and depth upon the volume of water flowing through them. The valley of the Hamilton river is the greatest, forms a continuation of the valley of the Inlet and extends 300 m. farther inland, while its bottom lies from 500 to 1500 ft. below the surface of the plateau into which it is cut. The depressions between the low ridges of the interior are occupied by innumerable lakes, many of great size, including Mistassini, Mishikamau, Clearwater, Kaniapiskau and Seal, all from 50 to 100 m. long. The streams discharging these lakes, before entering their valleys, flow on a level with the country and occupy all depressions, so that they frequently spread out into lake-expansions and are often divided into numerous channels by large islands. The descent into the valleys is usually abrupt, being made by heavy rapids and falls; the Hamilton, from the level interior, in a course of 12 m. falls 760 ft. into the head of its valley, this descent including a sheer drop of 315 ft. at the Grand Falls, which, taken with the large volume of the river, makes it the greatest fall in North America. The rivers of the northern and western watersheds drain about two-thirds of the peninsula; the most important of the former are the Koksoak, the largest river of Labrador (over 500 m. long), the George, Whale and Payne rivers, all flowing into Ungava Bay. The large rivers flowing westwards into Hudson Bay are the Povungnituk, Kogaluk, Great Whale, Big, East Main and Rupert, varying in length from 300 to 500 m. The rivers flowing south are exceedingly rapid, the Moisie, Romaine, Natashkwan and St Augustine being the most important; all are about 300 m. long. The Atlantic coast range throws most of the drainage northwards into the Ungava basin, and only small streams fall into the ocean, except the Hamilton, North-west and Kenamou, which empty into the head of Hamilton Inlet.
Geology.—The peninsula is formed largely of crystalline schists and gneisses associated with granites and other igneous rocks, all of archaean age; there are also large areas of non-fossiliferous, stratified limestones, cherts, shales and iron ores, the unaltered equivalents of part of the schists and gneisses. Narrow strips of Animikie (Upper Huronian or perhaps Cambrian) rocks occur along the low-lying southern and western shores, but there are nowhere else indications of the peninsula having been below sea-level since an exceedingly remote time. During the glacial period the country was covered by a thick mantle of ice, which flowed out radially from a central collecting-ground. Owing to the extremely long exposure to denudation, to the subsequent removal of the greater part of the decomposed rock by glaciers, and to the unequal weathering of the component rocks, it is now a plateau, which ascends somewhat abruptly within a few miles of the coast-line to heights of between
- ↑ From the Portuguese llavrador (a yeoman farmer). The name was originally given to Greenland (1st half of 16th century) and was transferred to the peninsula in the belief that it formed part of the same country as Greenland. The name was bestowed “because he who first gave notice of seeing it [Greenland] was a farmer (llavrador) from the Azores.” See the historical sketch of Labrador by W. S. Wallace in Grenfell’s Labrador, &c., 1909.
