Act 1889. This provided for special notice to the chief inspector from

all occupiers of cotton cloth factories (i.e. any room, shed, or workshop or part thereof in which weaving of cotton cloth is carried on) who intend to produce humidity by artificial means; regulated both temperature of workrooms and amount of moisture in the atmosphere, and provided for tests and records of the same; and fixed a standard minimum volume of fresh air (600 cub. ft.) to be admitted in every hour for every person employed in the factory. Power was retained for the secretary of state to modify by order the standard for the maximum limit of humidity of the atmosphere at any given temperature. A short act in 1870 extended this power to other measures for the protection of health.

The special measures from 1878 to 1889 gave valuable precedents for further developments of special hygiene in factory life, but the next advance in the Factory and Workshop Act 1891, following the House of Lords Committee on the sweating system and the Berlin International Labour Conference, extended over much wider ground. Its principal objects were: (a) to render administration of the law relating to workshops more efficient, particularly as regards sanitation; with this end in view it made the primary controlling authority for sanitary matters in workshops the local sanitary authority (now the district council), acting by their officers, and giving them the powers of the less numerous body of factory inspectors, while at the same time the provisions of the Public Health Acts replaced in workshops the very similar sanitary provisions of the Factory Acts; (b) to provide for greater security against accidents and more efficient fencing of machinery in factories; (c) to extend the method of regulation of unhealthy or dangerous occupations by application of special rules and requirements to any incident of employment (other than in a domestic workshop) certified by the secretary of state to be dangerous or injurious to health or dangerous to life or limb; (d) to raise the age of employment of children and restrict the employment of women immediately after childbirth; (e) to require particulars of rate of wages to be given with work to piece-workers in certain branches of the textile industries; (f) to amend the act of 1878 in various subsidiary ways, with the view of improving the administration of its principles, e.g. by increasing the means of checking the amount of overtime worked, empowering inspectors to enter workplaces used as dwellings without a justice's warrant, and the imposition of minimum penalties in certain cases. On this act followed four years of greatly accelerated administrative activity. No fewer than sixteen trades were scheduled by the secretary of state as dangerous to health. The manner of preparing and establishing suitable rules was greatly modified by the act of 1901 and will be dealt with in that connexion.

The Factory and Workshop Act 1895 followed thus on a period of exercise of new powers of administrative regulation (the period being also that during which the Royal Commission on Labour made its wide survey of industrial conditions), and after two successive annual reports of the chief inspector of factories had embodied reports and recommendations from the women inspectors, who in 1893 were first added to the inspectorate. Again, the chief features of an even wider legislative effort than that of 1891 were the increased stringency and definiteness of the measures for securing hygienic and safe conditions of work. Some of these measures, however, involved new principles, as in the provision for the prohibition of the use of a dangerous machine or structure by the order of a magistrate's court, and the power to include in the special rules drawn up in pursuance of section 8 of the act of 1891, the prohibition of the employment of any class of persons, or the limitation of the period of employment of any class of persons in any process scheduled by order of the secretary of state. These last two powers have both been exercised, and with the exercise of the latter passed away, without opposition, the absolute freedom of the employer of the adult male labourer to carry on his manufacture without legislative limitation of the hours of labour. Second only in significance to these new developments was the addition, for the first time since 1867, of new classes of workplaces not covered by the general definitions in section 93 of the Consolidating Act of 1878, viz.: (a) laundries (with special conditions as to hours, &c.); (b) docks, wharves, quays, warehouses and premises on which machinery worked by power is temporarily used for the purpose of the construction of a building or any structural work in connexion with the building (for the purpose only of obtaining security against accidents). Other entirely new provisions in the act of 1895, later strengthened by the act of 1901, were the requirement of a reasonable temperature in workrooms, the requirement of lavatories for the use of persons employed in any department where poisonous substances are used, the obligation on occupiers and medical practitioners to report cases of industrial poisoning; and the penalties imposed on an employer wilfully allowing wearing apparel to be made, cleaned or repaired in a dwelling-house where an inmate is suffering from infectious disease. Another provision empowered the secretary of state to specify classes of outwork and areas with a view to the regulation of the sanitary condition of premises in which outworkers are employed. Owing to the conditions attached to its exercise, no case was found in which this power could come into operation, and the act of 1901 deals with the matter on new lines. The requirement of annual returns from occupiers of persons employed, and the competency of the person charged with infringing the act to give evidence in his defence, were important new provisions, as was also the adoption of the powers to direct a formal investigation of any accident on the lines laid down in section 45 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1887. Other sections, relating to sanitation and safety, were developments of previous regulations, e.g. the fixing of a standard of overcrowding, provision of sanitary accommodation separate for each sex where the standard of the Public Health Act Amendment Act of 1890 had not been adopted by the competent local sanitary authority, power to order a fan or other mechanical means to carry off injurious gas, vapour or other impurity (the previous power covering only dust). The fencing of machinery and definition of accidents were made more precise, young persons were prohibited from cleaning dangerous machinery, and additional safeguards against risk of injury by fire or panic were introduced. On the question of employment the foremost amendments lay in the almost complete prohibition of overtime for young persons, and the restriction of the power of an employer to employ protected persons outside his factory or workshop on the same day that he had employed them in the factory or workshop. Under the head of particulars of work and wages to piece-workers an important new power, highly valued by the workers, was given to apply the principle with the necessary modifications by order of the secretary of state to industries other than textile and to outworkers as well as to those employed inside factories and workshops.

The act of 1901.

In 1899 an indirect modification of the limitation to employment of children was effected by the Elementary Education Amendment Act, which, by raising from eleven to twelve the minimum age at which a child may, by the by-laws of a local authority, obtain total or partial exemption from the obligation to attend school, made it unlawful for an occupier to take into employment any child under twelve in such a manner as to prevent full-time attendance at school. The age of employment became generally thereby the same as it has been for employment at a mine above ground since 1887. The act of 1901 made the prohibition of employment of a child under twelve in a factory or workshop direct and absolute. Under the divisions of sanitation, safety, fitness for employment, special regulation of dangerous trades, special control of bakehouses, exceptional treatment of creameries, new methods of dealing with home work and outworkers, important additions were made to the general law by the act of 1901, as also in regulations for strengthened administrative control. New general sanitary provisions were those prescribing: (a) ventilation _per se_ for every workroom, and empowering the secretary of state to fix a standard of sufficient ventilation; (b) drainage of wet floors; (c) the power of the secretary of state to define in certain cases what shall constitute sufficient and suitable sanitary accommodation. New safety provisions were those relating to--(a) Examination and report on steam boilers; (b) prohibition of employment of a child in cleaning below machinery in motion; (c) power of the district council to make by-laws for escape in case of fire. The most important administrative alterations were: (a) a justice engaged in the same trade as, or being officer of an association of persons engaged in the same trade as, a person charged with an offence may not act at the hearing and determination of the charge; (b) ordinary supervision of sanitary conditions under which outwork is carried on was transferred to the district council, power being reserved to the Home Office to intervene in case of neglect or default by any district council.

Acts of 1903, 1906, 1907.

The Employment of Children Act 1903, while primarily providing for industries outside the scope of the Factory Act, incidentally secured that children employed as half-timers should not also be employed in other occupations. The Notice of Accidents Act 1906 amended the whole system of notification of accidents, simultaneously in mines, quarries, factories and workshops, and will be set out in following paragraphs. The Factory and Workshop Act of 1907 amended the law in respect of laundries by generally applying the provisions of 1901 to trade laundries while granting them choice of new exceptional periods, and by extending the provisions of the act (with certain powers to the Home Office by Orders laid before parliament to allow variations) to institution laundries carried on for charitable or reformatory purposes. The Employment of Women Act 1907 repealed an exemption in the act of 1901 (and earlier acts) relating to employment of women in flax scutch mills, thus bringing this employment under the ordinary provisions as to period of employment.

The following paragraphs aim at presenting an idea of the scope of the modified and amended law, as a whole, adding where clearly necessary reference to the effect of acts, which ceased to apply after the 31st of December 1901:--

Definitions.

The workplaces to which the act applies are, first, "factories" and "workshops"; secondly, laundries, docks, wharves, &c., enumerated above as introduced and regulated partially only by the act of 1895 and subsequent acts. Apart from this secondary list, and having regard to workplaces which remain undefined by the law, the act may broadly be said to apply to premises, rooms or places in which manual labour, with or without the aid of mechanical power, is exercised for gain in or incidental to the making, altering, repairing, ornamenting, washing, cleaning or finishing or adapting for sale of any article or part of any article. If steam, water or other mechanical power is used in aid of the manufacturing process, the workplace is a factory; if not, it is a workshop. There is, however, a list of eighteen classes of works (brought under the factory law for reasons of safety, &c., before workshops generally were regulated) which are defined as factories whether power is used in them or not. Factories are, again, subdivided into textile and non-textile: they are textile if the machinery is employed in preparing, manufacturing or finishing cotton, wool, hair, silk, flax, hemp, jute, tow, China grass, cocoanut fibre or other like material either separately or mixed together, or mixed with any other material, or any fabric made thereof; all other factories are non-textile. The distinction turns on the historical origin of factory regulation and the regulations in textile factories remain in some respects slightly more stringent than in the non-textile factories and workshops, though the general provisions are almost the same. Three special classes of workshops have for certain purposes to be distinguished from ordinary workshops, which include tenement workshops: (a) Domestic workshops, i.e. any private house, room or place, which, though used as a dwelling, is by reason of the work carried on there a workshop, and in which the only persons employed are members of the same family, dwelling there alone--in these women's hours are unrestricted; (b) Women's workshops, in which neither children nor young persons are employed--in these a more elastic arrangement of hours is permissible than in ordinary workshops; (c) Workshops in which men only are employed--these come under the same general regulations in regard to sanitation as other workshops, also under the provisions of the Factory Act as regards security, and, if certified by the secretary of state, may be brought under special regulations. They are otherwise outside the scope of the act of 1901.

The person to whom the regulations apply in the above-defined workplaces are _children_, i.e. persons between the ages of twelve and fourteen, _young persons_, i.e. boys or girls between the ages of fourteen (or if an educational certificate has been obtained, thirteen) and eighteen years of age, and _women_, i.e. females above the age of eighteen; these are all "protected" persons to whom the general provisions of the act, inclusive of the regulation of hours and times of employment, apply. To adult men generally those provisions broadly only apply which are aimed at securing sanitation and safety in the conduct of the manufacturing process.

The person generally responsible for observance of the provisions of the law, whether these relate to health, safety, limitation of the hours of labour or other matters, is the _occupier_ (a term undefined in the act) of the factory, workshop or laundry. There are, however, limits to his responsibility: (a) generally, where the occupier has used due diligence to enforce the execution of the act, and can show that another person, whether agent, servant, workman or other person, is the real offender; (b) specially in a factory the sections relating to employment of protected persons, where the owner or hirer of a machine or implement driven by mechanical power is some person other than the occupier of the factory, the owner or hirer, so far as respects any offence against the act committed in relation to a person who is employed in connexion with the machine or implement, and is in the employment or pay of the owner or hirer, shall be deemed to be the occupier of the factory; (c) for the one purpose of reporting accidents, the actual employer of the person injured in any factory or workshop is bound under penalty immediately to report the same to the occupier; (d) so far as relates to sanitary conditions, fencing of machinery, affixing of notices in _tenement_ factories, the _owner_ (as defined by the Public Health Act 1875), generally speaking, takes the place of the occupier.

Employment in a factory or workshop includes work whether for wages or not: (a) in a manufacturing process or handicraft, (b) in cleaning any place used for the same, (c) in cleaning or oiling any part of the machinery, (d) any work whatsoever incidental to the process or handicraft, or connected with the article made. Persons found in any part of the factory or workshop, where machinery is used or manufacture carried on, except at meal-times, or when machinery is stopped, are deemed to be employed until the contrary is proved. The act, however, does not apply to employment for the sole purpose of repairing the premises or machinery, nor to the process of preserving and curing fish immediately upon its arrival in the fishing boats in order to prevent the fish from being destroyed or spoiled, nor to the process of cleaning and preparing fruit so far as is necessary to prevent it from spoiling during the months of June, July, August and September. Certain light handicrafts carried on by a family only in a private house or room at irregular intervals are also outside the scope of the act.

Sanitation.

The foremost provisions are those relating to the sanitary condition of the workplaces and the general security of every class of worker. Every factory must be kept in a cleanly condition, free from noxious effluvia, ventilated in such a manner as to render harmless, so far as practicable, gases, vapours, dust or other impurities generated in the manufacture; must be provided with sufficient and suitable sanitary conveniences separate for the sexes; must not be overcrowded (not less than 250 cubic ft. during the day, 400 during overtime, for each worker). In these matters the law of public health takes in workshops the place of the Factory Act, the requirements being substantially the same. Although, however, primarily the officers of the district council enforce the sanitary provisions in workshops, the government factory inspectors may give notice of any defect in them to the district council in whose district they are situate; and if proceedings are not taken within one month by the latter, the factory inspector may act in default and recover expenses from the district council. This power does not extend to domestic workshops which are under the law relating to public health so far as general sanitation is concerned. General powers are reserved to the secretary of state, where he is satisfied that the Factory Act or law relating to public health as regards workplaces has not been carried out by any district council, to authorize a factory inspector during a period named in his order to act instead of the district council. Other general sanitary provisions administered by the government inspectors are the requirement in factories and workshops of washing conveniences where poisonous substances are used; adequate measures for securing and maintaining a reasonable temperature of such a kind as will not interfere with the purity of the air in each room in which any person is employed; maintenance of sufficient means of ventilation in every room in a factory or workshop (in conformity with such standard as may be prescribed by order of the secretary of state); provision of a fan to carry off injurious dust, gas or other impurity, and prevent their inhalation in any factory or workshop; drainage of floors where wet processes are carried on. For laundries and bakehouses there are further sanitary regulations; e.g. in laundries all stoves for heating irons shall be sufficiently separated from any ironing-room or ironing-table, and the floors shall be "drained in such a manner as will allow the water to flow off freely"; and in bakehouses a cistern supplying water to a bakehouse must be quite separate from that supplying water to a water-closet, and the latter may not communicate directly with the bakehouse. Use of underground bakehouses (i.e. a baking room with floor more than 3 ft. below the ground adjoining) is prohibited, except where already used at the passing of the act; further, in these cases, after 1st January 1904, a certificate as to suitability in light, ventilation, &c., must be obtained from the district council. In other trades certified by the secretary of state further sanitary regulations may be made to increase security for health by special rules to be presently touched on. The secretary of state may also make sanitary requirements a condition of granting such exceptions to the general law as he is empowered to grant. In factories, as distinct from workshops, a periodical lime washing (or washing with hot water and soap where paint and varnish have been used) of all inside walls and ceilings once at least in every fourteen months is generally required (in bakehouses once in six months). As regards sufficiency and suitability of sanitary accommodation, the standards determined by order of the secretary of state shall be observed in the districts to which it is made applicable. An order was made called the Sanitary Accommodation Order, on the 4th of February 1903, the definitions and standards in which have also been widely adopted by local sanitary authorities in districts where the Order itself has no legal force, the local authority having parallel power under the Public Health Act of 1890.

Security and accidents.

Security in the use of machinery is provided for by precautions as regards the cleaning of machinery in motion and working between the fixed and traversing parts of self-acting machines driven by power, by fencing of machinery, and by empowering inspectors to obtain an order from a court of summary jurisdiction to prohibit the use, temporarily or absolutely, of machinery, ways, works or plant, including use of a steam boiler, which cannot be used without danger to life and limb. Every hoist and fly-wheel directly connected with mechanical power, and every part of a water-wheel or engine worked by mechanical power, and every wheel race, must be fenced, whatever its position, and every part of mill-gearing or dangerous machinery must either be fenced or be in such position that it is as safe as if fenced. No protected persons may clean any part of mill-gearing in motion, and children may further not clean any part of or below manufacturing machinery in motion by aid of mechanical power; young persons further may not clean any machinery if the inspector notifies it to the occupier as dangerous. Security as regards the use of dangerous premises is provided for by empowering courts of summary jurisdiction, on the application of an inspector, to prohibit their use until the danger has been removed. The district council, or, in London, the county council, or in case of their default the factory inspector, can require certain provisions for escape in case of fire in factories and workshops in which more than forty persons are employed; special powers to make by-laws for means of escape from fire in any factory or workshop are, in addition to any powers for prevention of fire that they possess, given to every district council, in London to the county council. The means of escape must be kept free from obstruction. Provisions are made for doors to open outwards in each room in which more than ten persons are employed, and to prevent the locking, bolting or fastening of doors so that they cannot easily be opened from inside when any person is employed or at meals inside the workplace. Further, provisions for security may be provided in special regulations. Every boiler for generating steam in a factory or workshop or place where the act applies must have a proper safety valve, a steam gauge, and a water gauge, and every such boiler, valve and gauge must be maintained in proper condition. Examination by a competent person must take place at least once in every fourteen months. The occupier of any factory or workshop may be liable for penal compensation not exceeding £100 in case of injury or death due to neglect of any provision or special rule, the whole or any part of which may be applied for the benefit of the injured person or his family, as the secretary of state determines. When a death has occurred by accident in a factory or workshop, the coroner must advise the factory inspector for the district of the place and time of the inquest. The secretary of state may order a formal investigation of the circumstances of any accident as in the case of mines. Careful and detailed provisions are made for the reporting by occupiers to inspectors, and entry in the registers at factories and workshops of accidents which occur in a factory or workshop and (a) cause loss of life to a person employed there, or (b) are due to machinery moved by mechanical power, molten metal, hot liquid, explosion, escape of gas or steam, electricity, so disabling any person employed in the factory or workshop as to cause him to be absent throughout at least one whole day from his ordinary work, (c) are due to any other special cause which the secretary of state may determine, (d) not falling under the previous heads and yet cause disablement for more than seven days' ordinary work to any person working in the factory or workshop. In the case of (a) or (b) notice has also to be sent to the certifying surgeon by the occupier. Cases of lead, phosphorus, arsenical and mercurial poisoning, or anthrax, contracted in any factory or workshop must similarly be reported and registered by the occupier, and the duty of reporting these cases is also laid on medical practitioners under whose observation they come. The list of classes of poisoning can be extended by the secretary of state's order.

Physical fitness of workers.

Certificates of physical fitness for employment must be obtained by the occupier from the certifying surgeon for the district for all persons under sixteen years of age employed in a factory, and in any class of workshops to which the requirement has been extended by order of the secretary of state, and an inspector may suspend any such persons for re-examination in a factory, or for examination in a workshop, when "disease or bodily infirmity" unfits the person, in his opinion, for the work of the place. The certifying surgeon may examine the process as well as the person submitted, and may qualify the certificate he grants by conditions as to the work on which the person is fit to be employed. An occupier of a factory or workshop or laundry shall not knowingly allow a woman to be employed therein within four weeks after childbirth.

Hours of protected persons.

The employment of children, young persons and women is regulated as regards ordinary and exceptional hours of work, ordinary and exceptional meal-times, length of spells and holidays. The outside limits of ordinary periods of employment and holidays are, broadly, the same for textile factories as for non-textile factories and workshops; the main difference lies in the requirement of not less than a total two hours' interval for meals out of the twelve, and a limit of four and a half hours for any spell of work, a longer weekly half holiday, and a prohibition of overtime, in textile factories, as compared with a total one and a half hours' interval for meals and a limit of five hours for spells and (conditional) permission of overtime in non-textile factories. The hours of work must be specified, and from Monday to Friday may be between 6 A.M. and 6 P.M., or 7 A.M. to 7 P.M.; in non-textile factories and workshops the hours also may be taken between 8 A.M. and 8 P.M. or by order of the secretary of state for special industries 9 A.M. to 9 P.M. Between these outside limits, with the proviso that meal-times must be fixed and limits as to spells observed, women and young persons may be employed the full time, children on the contrary only half time, on alternate days, or in alternate sets attending school half time regularly. On Saturdays, in textile factories in which the period commences at 6 A.M. all manufacturing work must cease at 12 if not less than one hour is given for meals, or 11.30 if less than one hour is given for meals (half an hour extra allowed for cleaning), and in non-textile factories and workshops at 2 P.M., 3 P.M. or 4 P.M., according as the hour of beginning is 6 A.M., 7 A.M. or 8 A.M. In "domestic workshops" the total number of hours for young persons and children must not exceed those allowed in ordinary workshops, but the outside limits for beginning and ending are wider; and the case is similar as regards hours of women in "women's workshops." Employment outside a factory or workshop in the business of the same is limited in a manner similar to that laid down in the Shop Hours Act, to be touched on presently. Overtime in certain classes of factories, workshops and warehouses attached to them is permitted, under conditions specified in the acts, for women, to meet seasonal or unforeseen pressure of business, or where goods of a perishable nature are dealt with, for young persons only in a very limited degree in factories liable to stoppage for drought or flood, or for an unfinished process. These and other cases of exceptional working are under minute and careful administrative regulations. Broadly these same regulations as to exceptional overtime may apply in _laundries_ but the act of 1907 granted to laundries not merely ancillary to the manufacture carried on in a factory or workshop (e.g. shirt and collar factories), additional power to fix different periods of employment for different days of the week, and to make use of one or other of two exceptional methods of arranging the daily periods so as to permit of periods of different length on different days; these exceptional periods cannot be worked in addition to overtime permissible under the general law. Laundries carried on in connexion with charitable or reformatory institutions were brought in 1907 within the scope of the law, but special schemes for regulation as to hours, meals, holidays, &c., may be submitted by the managers to the secretary of state, who is empowered to approve them if he is satisfied that they are not less favourable than the corresponding provisions of the principal act; such schemes shall be laid as soon as possible before both Houses of Parliament.

Dangerous and unhealthy industries.

Night work is allowed in certain specified industries, under conditions, for male young persons, but for no other workers under eighteen, and overtime for women may never be later than 10 P.M. or before 6 A.M. Sunday work is prohibited except, under conditions, for Jews; and in factories, workshops and laundries six holidays (generally the Bank holidays) must be allowed in the year. In creameries in which women and young persons are employed the secretary of state may by special order vary the beginning and end of the daily period of employment, and allow employment for not more than three hours on Sundays and holidays.

The general provisions of the act may be supplemented where specially dangerous or unhealthy trades are carried on, by special regulations. This was provided for in the law in force until 31st December 1901, as in the existing principal act, and the power to establish rules had been exercised between 1892 and 1901 in twenty-two trades or processes where injury arose either from handling of dangerous substances, such as lead and lead compounds, phosphorus, arsenic or various chemicals, or where there is inhalation of irritant dust or noxious fumes, or where there is danger of explosion or infection of anthrax. Before the rule could be drawn up under the acts of 1891 to 1895, the secretary of state had to certify that in the particular case or class of cases in question (e.g. process or machinery), there was, in his opinion, danger to life or limb or risk of injury to health; thereupon the chief inspector might propose to the occupier of the factory or workshop such special rules or measures as he thought necessary to meet the circumstances. The occupier might object or propose modifications, but if he did not the rules became binding in twenty-one days; if he objected, and the secretary of state did not assent to any proposed modification, the matters in difference had to be referred to arbitration, the award in which finally settled the rules or requirement to be observed. In November 1901, in the case of the earthenware and china industry, the last arbitration of the kind was opened and was finally concluded in 1903. The parties to the arbitration were the chief inspector, on behalf of the secretary of state, and the occupier or occupiers, but the workmen interested might be and were represented on the arbitration. In the establishing of the twenty-two sets of existing special rules only thrice has arbitration been resorted to, and only on two of these occasions were workmen represented. The provisions as to the arbitration were laid down in the first schedule to the Act of 1891, and were similar to those under the Coal Mines Regulation Acts. Many of these codes have still the force of law and will continue until in due course revised under the amended procedure of the act of 1901. They might not only regulate conditions of employment, but also restrict or prohibit employment of any class of workers; where such restriction or prohibition affected adult workers the rules had to be laid for forty days before both Houses of Parliament before coming into operation. The obligation to observe the rules in detail lies on workers as well as on occupiers, and the section in the act of 1891 providing a penalty for non-observance was drafted, as in the case of the mines, so as to provide for a simultaneous fine for each (not exceeding two pounds for the worker, not exceeding ten pounds for the employer).

The provisions as to special regulations of the act of 1901 touch primarily the method of procedure for making the regulations, but they also covered for the first time domestic workshops and added a power as to the kind of regulations that may be made; further, they strengthened the sanction for observance of any rules that may be established, by placing the occupier in the same general position as regards penalty for non-observance as in other matters under the act. On the certificate of the secretary of state that any manufacture, machinery, plant, process or manual labour used in factories or workshops is dangerous or injurious to life, health or limb, such regulations as appear to the secretary of state to meet the necessity of the case may be made by him after he has duly published notice: (1) of his intention; (2) of the place where copies of the draft regulations can be obtained; and (3) of the time during which objections to them can be made by persons affected. The secretary of state may modify the regulations to meet the objections made. If not, unless the objection is withdrawn or appears to him frivolous, he shall, before making the regulations, appoint a competent person to hold a public inquiry with regard to the draft regulations and to report to him thereon. The inquiry is to be made under such rules as the secretary of state may lay down, and when the regulations are made, they must be laid as soon as possible before parliament. Either House may annul these regulations or any of them, without prejudice to the power of the secretary of state to make new regulations. The regulations may apply to all factories or workshops in which the certified manufacture, process, &c., is used, or to a specified class. They may, among other things, (a) prohibit or limit employment of any person or class of persons; (b) prohibit, limit, or control use of any material or process; (c) modify or extend special regulations contained in the Act. Regulations have been established among others in the following trades and processes: felt hat-making where any inflammable solvent is used; file-cutting by hand; manufacture of electric accumulators; docks, processes of loading, unloading, &c.; tar distilling; factories in which self-acting mules are used; use of locomotives; spinning and weaving of flax, hemp and jute; manufacture of paints and colours; heading of yarn dyed by means of lead compounds.

Measures and particulars to piece-workers.

Although the Factory and Workshop Acts have not directly regulated wages, they have made certain provision for securing to the worker that the amount agreed upon shall be received: (a) by extending every act in force relating to the inspection of weights, measures and weighing machines for use in the sale of goods to those used in a factory or workshop for checking or ascertaining the wages of persons employed; (b) by ensuring that piece-workers in the textile trades (and other trades specified by the secretary of state) shall receive, before commencing any piece of work, clear particulars of the wages applicable to the work to be done and of the work to which that rate is to be applied. Unless the particulars of work are ascertainable by an automatic indicator, they must be given to textile workers in writing, and in the case of weavers in the cotton, worsted and woollen trades the particulars of wages must be supplied separately to each worker, and also shown on a placard in a conspicuous position. In other textile processes, it is sufficient to furnish the particulars separately to each worker. The secretary of state has used his powers to extend this protection to non-textile workers, with suitable modifications, in various hardware industries, including pen-making, locks, chains, in wholesale tailoring and making of wearing apparel, in fustian cutting, umbrella-making, brush-making and a number of other piece-work trades. He further has in most of these and other trades used his power to extend this protection to outworkers.

Administration.

With a view to efficient administration of the act (a) certain notices have to be conspicuously exhibited at the factory or workshop, (b) registers and lists kept, and (c) notices sent to the inspector by the occupier. Among the first the most important are the prescribed abstract of the act, the names and addresses of the inspector and certifying surgeon, the period of employment, and specified meal-times (which may not be changed without fresh notice to the inspector), the air space and number of persons who may legally be employed in each room, and prescribed particulars of exceptional employment; among the second are the general registers of children and young persons employed, of accidents, of lime-washing, of overtime, and lists of outworkers; among the third are the notice of beginning to occupy a factory or workshop, which the occupier must send within one month, report of overtime employment, notice of accident, poisoning or anthrax, and returns of persons employed, with such other particulars as may be prescribed. These must be sent to the chief inspector at intervals of not less than one and not more than three years, as may be directed by the secretary of state.

The secretary of state for the Home Department controls the administration of the acts, appoints the inspectors referred to in the acts, assigns to them their duties, and regulates the manner and cases in which they are to exercise the powers of inspectors. The act, however, expressly assigns certain duties and powers to a chief inspector and certain to district inspectors. Many provisions of the acts depend as to their operation on the making of orders by the secretary of state. These orders may impose special obligations on occupiers and increase the stringency of regulations, may apply exceptions as to employment, and may modify or relax regulations to meet special classes of circumstances. In certain cases, already indicated, his orders guide or determine the action of district councils, and, generally, in case of default by a council he may empower his inspectors to act as regards workplaces, instead of the council, both under the Factory Acts and Public Health Acts.

The powers of an inspector are to enter, inspect and examine, by day or by night, at any reasonable time, any factory or workshop (or laundry, dock, &c.), or part of one, when he has reason to believe that any person is employed there; to take with him a constable if he has reasonable cause to expect obstruction; to require production of registers, certificates, &c., under the acts; to examine, alone or in the presence of any other person, as he sees fit, every person in the factory or workshop, or in a school where the children employed are being educated; to prosecute, conduct or defend before a court of summary jurisdiction any proceeding under the acts; and to exercise such other powers as are necessary for carrying the act into effect. The inspector has also the duty of enforcing the Truck Acts in places, and in respect of persons, under the Factory Acts. Certifying surgeons are appointed by the chief inspector subject to the regulations of the secretary of state, and their chief duties are (a) to examine workers under sixteen, and persons under special rules, as to physical fitness for the daily work during legal periods, with power to grant qualified certificates as to the work for which the young worker is fit, and (b) to investigate and report on accidents and cases of lead, phosphorus or other poisoning and anthrax.

In 1907 there were registered as under inspection 110,276 factories, including laundries with power, 146,917 workshops (other than men's workshops), including laundries without power; of works under special rules or regulations (included in the figures just given) there were 10,586 and 19,687 non-textile works under orders for supply of particulars to piece-workers. Of notices of accidents received there were 124,325, of which 1179 were fatal; of reported cases of poisoning there were 653, of which 40 were fatal. Prosecutions were taken by inspectors in 4474 cases and convictions obtained in 4211 cases. Of persons employed there were, according to returns of occupiers, 1904, 4,165,791 in factories and 688,756 in workshops.

_Coal Mines._--The mode of progress to be recorded in the regulation of coal mines since 1872 can be contrasted in one aspect with the progress just recorded of factory legislation since 1878. Consolidation was again earlier adopted when large amendments were found necessary, with the result that by far the greater part of the law is to be found in the act of 1887, which repealed and re-enacted, with amendments, the Coal Mines Acts of 1872 and 1886, and the Stratified Ironstone Mines (Gunpowder) Act, 1881. The act of 1881 was simply concerned with rules relating to the use of explosives underground. The act of 1886 dealt with three questions: (a) The election and payment of checkweighers (i.e. the persons appointed and paid by miners in pursuance of section 13 of the act of 1887 for the purpose of taking a correct account on their behalf of the weight of the mineral gotten by them, and for the correct determination of certain deductions for which they may be liable); (b) provision for new powers of the secretary of state to direct a formal investigation of any explosion or accident, and its causes and circumstances, a provision which was later adopted in the law relating to factories; (c) provision enabling any relatives of persons whose death may have been caused by explosions or accidents in or about mines to attend in person, or by agent, coroners' inquests thereon, and to examine witnesses. The act of 1887, which amended, strengthened and consolidated these acts and the earlier Consolidating Act of 1872, may also be contrasted in another aspect with the general acts of factory legislation. In scope it formed, as its principal forerunner had done, a general code; and in some measure it went farther in the way of consolidation than the Factory Acts had done, inasmuch as certain questions, which in factories are dealt with by statutes distinct from the Factory Acts, have been included in the Mines Regulation Acts, e.g. the prohibition of the payment of wages in public-houses, and the machinery relating to weights and measures whereby miners control their payment; further, partly from the less changing nature of the industry, but probably mainly from the power of expression gained for miners by their organization, the code, so far as it went, at each stage answered apparently on the whole more nearly to the views and needs of the persons protected than the parallel law relating to factories. This was strikingly seen in the evidence before the Royal Commission on Labour in 1892-1894, where the repeated expression of satisfaction on the part of the miners with the provisions as distinct from the administration of the code ("with a few trifling exceptions") is in marked contrast with the long and varied series of claims and contentions put forward for amendment of the Factory Acts.

Since the act of 1887 there have followed five minor acts, based on the recommendation of the officials acting under the acts, while two of them give effect to claims made by the miners before the Royal Commission on Labour. Thus, in 1894, the Coal Mines (Checkweigher) Act rendered it illegal for an employer ("owner, agent, or manager of any mine, or any person employed by or acting under the instructions of any such owner, agent, or manager") to make the removal of a particular checkweigher a condition of employment, or to exercise improper influence in the appointment of a checkweigher. The need for this provision was demonstrated by a decision of the Court of Session in Edinburgh, which upheld an employer in his claim to the right of dismissing all the workmen and re-engaging them on condition that they would dismiss a particular checkweigher. In 1896 a short act extended the powers to propose, amend and modify special rules, provided for representation of workmen on arbitration under the principal act on any matter in difference, modified the provision for plans of mines in working and abandoned mines, amended three of the general rules (inspection before commencing work, use of safety lamp and non-inflammable substances for stemming), and empowered the secretary of state by order to prohibit or regulate the use of any explosive likely to become dangerous. In 1900 another brief act raised the age of employment of boys underground from twelve to thirteen. In 1903 another amending act allowed as an alternative qualification for a manager's certificate a diploma in scientific and mining training after at least two years' study at a university mining school or other educational institution approved by the secretary of state, coupled with practical experience of at least three years in a mine. In the same year the Employment of Children Act affected children in mines to the extent already indicated in connexion with factories. In 1905 a Coal Mines (Weighing of Minerals) Act improved some provisions relating to appointment and pay of checkweighers and facilities for them and their duly appointed deputies in carrying out their duties. In 1906 the Notice of Accidents Act provided for improved annual returns of accidents and for immediate reporting to the district inspector of accidents under newly-defined conditions as they arise in coal and metalliferous mines.

Act of 1887.

While the classes of mines regulated by the act of 1887 are the same as those regulated by the act of 1872 (i.e. mines of coal, of stratified ironstone, of shale and of fire-clay, including works above ground where the minerals are prepared for use by screening, washing, &c.) the interpretation of the term "mine" is wider and simpler, including "every shaft in the course of being sunk, and every level and inclined plane in the course of being driven, and all the shafts, levels, planes, works, tramways and sidings, both below ground and above ground, in and adjacent to and belonging to the mine." Of the persons responsible under penalty for the observance of the acts the term "owner" is defined precisely as in the act of 1872, but the term "agent" is modified to mean "any person appointed as the representative of the owner in respect of any mine or any part thereof, and, as such, superior to a manager appointed in pursuance of this act." Of the persons protected, the term "young person" disappeared from the act, and "boy," i.e. "a male under the age of sixteen years," and "girl," i.e. "a female under the age of sixteen years," take their place, and the term "woman" means, as before, "a female of the age of sixteen years and upwards." The prohibition of employment underground of women and girls remains untouched, and the prohibition of employment underground of boys has been successively extended from boys of the age of ten in 1872 to boys of twelve in 1887 and to boys of thirteen in 1900. The age of employment of boys and girls above ground in connexion with any mine is raised from ten years in 1872 to twelve years since 1887. The hours of employment of a boy below ground may not exceed fifty-four in any one week, nor ten in any one day from the time of leaving the surface to the time of returning to the surface. Above ground any boy or girl under thirteen (and over twelve) may not be employed on more than six days in any one week; if employed on more than three days in one week, the daily total must not exceed six hours, or in any other case ten hours. Protected persons above thirteen are limited to the same daily and weekly total of hours as boys below ground, but there are further provisions with regard to intervals for meals and prohibiting employment for more than five hours without an interval of at least half an hour for a meal. Registers must be kept of all protected persons, whether employed above or below ground. Section 38 of the Public Health Act 1875, which requires separate and sufficient sanitary conveniences for persons of each sex, was first extended by the act of 1887 to the portions of mines above ground in which girls and women are employed; underground this matter is in metalliferous mines in Cornwall now provided for by special rules. Ventilation, the only other requirement in the acts that can be classed as sanitary, is provided for in every mine in the "general rules" which are aimed at securing safety of mines, and which, so far as ventilation is concerned, seek to dilute and render harmless noxious or inflammable gases. The provision which prohibits employment of any persons in mines not provided with at least two shafts is made much more stringent by the act of 1887 than in the previous code, by increasing the distance between the two shafts from 10 to 15 yds., and increasing the height of communications between them. Other provisions amended or strengthened are those relating to the following points: (a) Daily personal supervision of the mine by the certificated manager; (b) classes of certificates and constitution of board for granting certificates of competency; (c) plan of workings of any mine to be kept up to a date not more than three months previously at the office of the mine; (d) notice to be given to the inspector of the district by the owner, agent or manager, of accidents in or about any mine which cause loss of life or serious personal injury, or are caused by explosion of coal or coal dust or any explosive or electricity or any other special cause that the secretary of state specifies by order, and which causes any personal injury to any person employed in or about the mine; it is provided that the place where an explosion or accident occurs causing loss of life or serious personal injury shall be left for inspection for at least three days, unless this would tend to increase or continue a danger or impede working of the mine: this was new in the act of 1887; (e) notice to be given of opening and abandonment of any mine: this was extended to the opening or abandonment of any seam; (f) plan of an abandoned mine or seam to be sent within three months; (g) formal investigation of any explosion or accident by direction of the secretary of state: this provision, first introduced by the act of 1886, was modified in 1887 to admit the appointment by the secretary of state of "any competent person" to hold the investigation, whereas under the earlier section only an inspector could be appointed.

General rules.

The "general rules" for safety in mines have been strengthened in many ways since the act of 1872. Particular mention may be made of rule 4 of the act of 1887, relating to the inspection of conditions as to gas ventilation beyond appointed stations at the entrance to the mine or different parts of the mine; this rule generally removed the earlier distinction between mines in which inflammable gas has been found within the preceding twelve months, and mines in which it has not been so found; of rules 8, 9, 10 and 11, relating to the construction, use, &c., of safety lamps, which are more detailed and stringent than rule 7 of the act of 1872, which they replaced; of rule 12, relating to the use of explosives below ground; of rule 24, which requires the appointment of a competent male person not less than twenty-two years of age for working the machinery for lowering and raising persons at the mine; of rule 34, which first required provision of ambulances or stretchers with splints and bandages at the mine ready for immediate use; of rule 38, which strengthened the provision for periodical inspection of the mine by practical miners on behalf of the workmen at their own cost. With reference to the last-cited rule, during 1898 a Prussian mining commission visited Great Britain, France and Belgium, to study and compare the various methods of inspection by working miners established in these three countries. They found that, so far as the method had been applied, it was most satisfactory in Great Britain, where the whole cost is borne by the workers' own organizations, and they attributed part of the decrease in number of accidents per thousand employed since 1872 to the inauguration of this system.

Special rules.

The provisions as to the proposal, amendment and modification of "special rules," last extended by the act of 1896, may be contrasted with those of the Factory Act. In the latter it is not until an industry or process has been scheduled as dangerous or injurious by the secretary of state's order that occasion arises for the formation of special rules, and then the initiative rests with the Factory Department whereas in mines it is incumbent in every case on the owner, agent or manager to propose within three months of the commencement of any working, for the approval of the secretary of state, special rules best calculated to prevent dangerous accidents, and to provide for the safety, convenience and proper discipline of the persons employed in or about the mine. These rules may, if they relate to lights and lamps used in the mine, description of explosives, watering and damping of the mine, or prevention of accidents from inflammable gas or coal dust, supersede any general rule in the principal act. Apart from the initiation of the rules, the methods of establishing them, whether by agreement or by resort to arbitration of the parties (i.e. the mine owners and the secretary of state), are practically the same as under the Factory Act, but there is special provision in the Mines Acts for enabling the persons working in the mine to transmit objections to the proposed rules, in addition to their subsequent right to be represented on the arbitration, if any.

Of the sections touching on wages questions, the prohibition of the payment of wages in public-houses remains unaltered, being re-enacted in 1887; the sections relating to payment by weight for amount of mineral gotten by persons employed, and for checkweighing the amount by a "checkweigher" stationed by the majority of workers at each place appointed for the weighing of the material, were revised, particularly as to the determination of deductions by the act of 1887, with a view to meeting some problems raised by decisions on cases under the act of 1872. The attempt seems not to have been wholly successful, the highest legal authorities having expressed conflicting opinions on the precise meaning of the terms "mineral contracted to be gotten." The whole history of the development of this means of securing the fulfilment of wage contract to the workers may be compared with the history of the sections affording protection to piece-workers by particulars of work and wages in the textile trades since the Factory Act of 1891.

Administration.

As regards legal proceedings, the chief amendments of the act of 1872 are: the extension of the provision that the "owner, agent, or manager" charged in respect of any contravention by another person might be sworn and examined as an ordinary witness, to any person charged with any offence under the act. The result of the proceedings against workmen by the owner, agent or manager in respect of an offence under the act is to be reported within twenty-one days to the inspector of the district. The powers of inspectors were extended to cover an inquiry as to the care and treatment of horses and other animals in the mine, and as to the control, management or direction of the mine by the manager.

An important act was passed in 1908 (Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908) limiting the hours of work for workmen below ground. It enacted that, subject to various provisions, a workman was not to be below ground in a mine for the purpose of his work, and of going to and from his work, for more than eight hours in any consecutive twenty-four hours. Exception was made in the case of those below ground for the purpose of rendering assistance in the event of an accident, or for meeting any danger, or for dealing with any emergency or work incompleted, through unforeseen circumstances, which requires to be dealt with to avoid serious interference in the work of the mine. The authorities of every mine must fix the times for the lowering and raising of the men to begin and be completed, and such times must be conspicuously posted at the pit head. These times must be approved by an inspector. The term "workman" in the act means any person employed in a mine below ground who is not an official of the mine (other than a fireman, examiner or deputy), or a mechanic or a horse keeper or a person engaged solely in surveying or measuring. In the case of a fireman, examiner, deputy, onsetter, pump minder, fanman or furnace man, the maximum period for which he may be below ground is nine hours and a half. A register must be kept by the authorities of the mine of the times of descent and ascent, while the workmen may, at their own cost, station persons (whether holding the office of checkweigher or not) at the pit head to observe the times. The authorities of the mine may extend the hours of working by one hour a day on not more than sixty days in one calendar year (s. 3). The act may be suspended by order in council in the event of war or of imminent national danger or great emergency, or in the event of any grave economic disturbance due to the demand for coal exceeding the supply available at any time. The act came into force on the 1st of July 1909 except for the counties of Northumberland and Durham where its operation was postponed until the 1st of January 1910.

In 1905 the number of coal-mines reported on was 3126, and the number of persons employed below ground was 691,112 of whom 43,443 were under 16 years of age. Above ground 167,261 were employed, of whom 6154 were women and girls. The number of separate fatal accidents was 1006, causing the loss of 1205 lives. Of prosecutions by far the greater number were against workmen, numbering in coal and metalliferous mines 953; owners and managers were prosecuted in 72 cases, and convictions obtained in 43 cases.

_Quarries._--From 1878 until 1894 open quarries (as distinct from underground quarries regulated by the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act) were regulated only by the Factory Acts so far as they then applied. It was laid down in section 93 of the act of 1878 (41 Vict. c. 16), that "any premises or place shall not be excluded from the definition of a factory or workshop by reason only that such premises, &c., are or is in the open air," thereby overruling the decision in _Kent_ v. _Astley_ that quarries in which the work, as a whole, was carried on in the open air were not factories; in a schedule to the same act quarries were defined as "any place not being a mine in which persons work in getting slate, stone, coprolites or other minerals." The Factory Act of 1891 made it possible to bring these places in part under "special rules" adapted to meet the special risks and dangers of the operations carried on in them, and by order of the secretary of state they were certified, December 1892, as dangerous, and thereby subject to special rules. Until then, as reported by one of the inspectors of factories, quarries had been placed under the Factory Acts without insertion of appropriate rules for their safe working, and many of them were "developed in a most dangerous manner without any regard for safety, but merely for economy," and managers of many had "scarcely seen a quarry until they became managers." In his report for 1892 it was recommended by the chief inspector of factories that quarries should be subject to the jurisdiction of the government inspectors of mines. At the same time currency was given, by the published reports of the evidence before the Royal Commission on Labour, to the wish of large numbers of quarrymen that open as well as underground quarries should come under more specialized government inspection. In 1893 a committee of experts, including inspectors of mines and of factories, was appointed by the Home Office to investigate the conditions of labour in open quarries, and in 1894 the Quarries Act brought every quarry, as defined in the Factory Act 1878, any part of which is more than 20 ft. deep, under certain of the provisions of the Metalliferous Mines Acts, and under the inspection of the inspectors appointed under those acts; further, it transferred the duty of enforcing the Factory and Workshop Acts, so far as they apply in quarries over 20 ft. deep, from the Factory to the Metalliferous Mines inspectors.

The provisions of the Metalliferous Mines Acts 1872 and 1875, applied to quarries, are those relating to payment of wages in public-houses, notice of accidents to the inspector, appointment and powers of inspectors, arbitration, coroners' inquests, special rules, penalties, certain of the definitions, and the powers of the secretary of state finally to decide disputed questions whether places come within the application of the acts. For other matters, and in particular fencing of machinery and employment of women and young persons, the Factory Acts apply, with a proviso that nothing shall prevent the employment of young persons (boys) in three shifts for not more than eight hours each. In 1899 it was reported by the inspectors of mines that special rules for safety had been established in over 2000 quarries. In the reports for 1905 it was reported that the accounts of blasting accidents indicated that there was "still much laxity in observance of the Special rules, and that many irregular and dangerous practices are in vogue." The absence or deficiency of external fencing to a quarry dangerous to the public has been since 1887 (50 & 51 Vict. c. 19) deemed a nuisance liable to be dealt with summarily in the manner provided by the Public Health Act 1875.

In 1905, 94,819 persons were employed, of whom 59,978 worked inside the actual pits or excavations, and 34,841 outside. Compared with 1900, there was a total increase of 924 in the number of persons employed. Fatal accidents resulted in 1900 in 127 deaths; compared with 1899 there was an increase of 10 in the number of deaths, and, as Professor Le Neve Foster pointed out, this exceeded the average death-rate of underground workers at mines under the Coal Mines Acts during the previous ten years, in spite of the quarrier "having nothing to fear from explosions of gas, underground fires or inundations." He attributed the difference to a lax observance of precautions which might in time be remedied by stringent administration of the law. In 1905 there were 97 fatal accidents resulting in 99 deaths. In 1900 there were 92 prosecutions against owners or agents, with 67 convictions, and 13 prosecutions of workers, with 12 convictions, and in 1905 there were 45 prosecutions of owners or agents with 43 convictions and 9 prosecutions of workmen with 5 convictions.

Payment of wages in public-houses.

In 1883 a short act extended to all "workmen" who are manual labourers other than miners, with the exception of domestic or menial servants, the prohibition of payment of wages in public-houses, beer-shops and other places for the sale of spirituous or fermented liquor, laid down in the Coal Mines Regulations and Metalliferous Mines Regulation Acts. The places covered by the prohibition include any office, garden or place belonging to or occupied with the places named, but the act does not apply to such wages as are paid by the resident, owner or occupier of the public-house, beer-shop and other places included in the prohibition to any workman _bona fide_ employed by him. The penalty for an offence against this act is one not exceeding £10 (compare the limit of £20 for the corresponding offence under the Coal Mines Act), and all offences may be prosecuted and penalties recovered in England and Scotland under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts. The act does not apply to Ireland, and no special inspectorate is charged with the duty of enforcing its provisions.

_Shop Hours._--In four brief acts, 1892 to 1899, still in force, the first very limited steps were taken towards the positive regulation of the employment of shop assistants. In the act of 1904 certain additional optional powers were given to any local authority making a "closing order" fixing the hour (not earlier than 7 P.M. or on one day in the week 1 P.M.) at which shops shall cease to serve customers throughout the area of the authority or any specified part thereof as regards all shops or as regards any specified class of shops. Before such an order can be made (1) a prima facie case for it must appear to the local authority; (2) the local authority must inquire and agree; (3) the order must be drafted and sent for confirmation or otherwise to the central authority, that is, the secretary of state for the Home Department; (4) the order must be laid before both Houses of Parliament. The Home Office has given every encouragement to the making of such orders, but their number in England is very small, and the act is practically inoperative in London and many large towns where the need is greatest. As the secretary of state pointed out in the House of Commons on the 1st of May 1907, the local authorities have not taken enough initiative, but at the same time there is a great difficulty for them in obtaining the required two-thirds majority, among occupiers of the shops to be affected, in favour of the order, and at the same time shop assistants have no power to set the law in motion. In England 364 local authorities have taken no steps, but in Scotland rather better results have been obtained. The House resolved, on the date named, that more drastic legislation is required. As regards shops, therefore, in place of such general codes as apply to factories, laundries, mines--only three kinds of protective requirement are binding on employers of shop assistants: (1) Limitation of the weekly total of hours of work of persons under eighteen years of age to seventy-four inclusive of meal-times; (2) prohibition of the employment of such persons in a shop on the same day that they have, to the knowledge of the employer, been employed in any factory or workshop for a longer period than would, in both classes of employment together, amount to the number of hours permitted to such persons in a factory or workshop; (3) provision for the supply of seats by the employer, in all rooms of a shop or other premises where goods are retailed to the public, for the use of female assistants employed in retailing the goods--the seats to be in the proportion of not fewer than one to every three female assistants. The first two requirements are contained in the act of 1892, which also prescribed that a notice, referring to the provisions of the act, and stating the number of hours in the week during which a young person may be lawfully employed in the shop, shall be kept exhibited by the employer; the third requirement was first provided by the act of 1899. The intervening acts of 1893 and 1895 are merely supplementary to the act of 1892; the former providing for the salaries and expenses of the inspectors which the council of any county or borough (and in the City of London the Common Council) were empowered by the act of 1892 to appoint; the latter providing a penalty of 40s. for failure of an employer to keep exhibited the notice of the provisions of the acts, which in the absence of a penalty it had been impossible to enforce. The penalty for employment contrary to the acts is a fine not exceeding £1 for each person so employed, and for failure to comply with the requirements as to seats, a fine not exceeding £3 for a first offence, and for any subsequent offence a fine of not less than £1 and not exceeding £5.

Meaning of "shop."

A wide interpretation is given by the act of 1892 to the class of workplace to which the limitation of hours applies. "Shop" means retail and wholesale shops, markets, stalls and warehouses in which assistants are employed for hire, and includes licensed public-houses and refreshment houses of any kind. The person responsible for the observance of the acts is the "employer" of the "young persons" (i.e. persons under the age of eighteen years), whose hours are limited, and of the "female assistants" for whom seats must be provided. Neither the term "employer" nor "shop assistant" (used in the title of the act of 1899) is defined; but other terms have the meaning assigned to them in the Factory and Workshop Act 1878. The "employer" has, in case of any contravention alleged, the same power as the "occupier" in the Factory Acts to exempt himself from fine on proof of due diligence and of the fact that some other person is the actual offender. The provisions of the act of 1892 do not apply to members of the same family living in a house of which the shop forms part, or to members of the employer's family, or to any one wholly employed as a domestic servant.

In London, where the County Council has appointed men and women inspectors to apply the acts of 1892 to 1899, there were, in 1900, 73,929 premises, and in 1905, 84,269, under inspection. In the latter year there were 22,035 employing persons under 18 years of age. In 1900 the number of young persons under the acts were: indoors, 10,239 boys and 4428 girls; outdoors, 35,019 boys, 206 girls. In 1905 the ratio between boys and girls had decidedly altered: indoors, 6602 boys, 4668 girls; outdoors, 22,654 boys, 308 girls. The number of irregularities reported in 1900 were 9204 and the prosecutions were 117; in 1905 the irregularities were 6966 and the prosecutions numbered 34. As regards the act of 1899, in only 1088 of the 14,844 shops affected in London was there found in 1900 to be failure to provide seats for the women employed in retailing goods. The chief officer of the Public Control Department reported that with very few exceptions the law was complied with at the end of the first year of its application.

As regards cleanliness, ventilation, drainage, water-supply and sanitary condition generally, shops have been since 1878 (by 41 Vict. c. 16, s. 101) subject to the provisions of the Public Health Act 1875, which apply to all buildings, except factories under the Factory Acts, in which any persons, whatever their number be, are employed. Thus, broadly, the same sanitary provisions apply in shops as in workshops, but in the former these are enforced solely by the officers of the local authority, without reservation of any power, as in workshops for the Home Office inspectorate, to act in default of the local authority.

Shop assistants, so far as they are engaged in manual, not merely clerical labour, come under the provisions of the Truck Acts 1831 to 1887, and in all circumstances they fall within the sections directed against unfair and unreasonable fines in the Truck Act of 1896; but, unlike employés in factories, workshops, laundries and mines, they are left to apply these provisions so far as they can themselves, since neither Home Office inspectors nor officers of the local authority have any specially assigned powers to administer the Truck Acts in shops.

The Truck Act 1887.

Persons benefited by Truck Acts.

_Truck._--Setting aside the special Hosiery Manufacture (Wages) Act 1874, aimed at a particular abuse appearing chiefly in the hosiery industry--the practice of making excessive charges on wages for machinery and frame rents--only two acts, those of 1887 and 1896, have been added to the general law against truck since the act of 1831, which repealed all prior Truck Acts and which remains the principal act. Further amendments of the law have been widely and strenuously demanded, and are hoped for as the result of the long inquiry by a departmental committee appointed early in 1906. The Truck Act Amendment Act 1887, amended and extended the act without adding any distinctly new principle; the Truck Act of 1896 was directed towards providing remedies for matters shown by decisions under the earlier Truck Acts to be outside the scope of the principles and provisions of those acts. Under the earlier acts the main objects were: (1) to make the wages of workmen, i.e. the reward of labour, payable only in current coin of the realm, and to prohibit whole or part payment of wages in food or drink or clothes or any other articles; (2) to forbid agreements, express or implied, between employer and workmen as to the manner or place in which, or articles on which, a workman shall expend his wages, or for the deduction from wages of the price of articles (other than materials to be used in the labour of the workmen) supplied by the employer. The act of 1887 added a further prohibition by making it illegal for an employer to charge interest on any advance of wages, "whenever by agreement, custom, or otherwise a workman is entitled to receive in anticipation of the regular period of the payment of his wages an advance as part or on account thereof." Further, it strengthened the section of the principal act which provided that no employer shall have any action against his workman for goods supplied at any shop belonging to the employer, or in which the employer is interested, by (a) securing any workman suing an employer for wages against any counter-claim in respect of goods supplied to the workman by any person under any order or direction of the employer, and (b) by expressly prohibiting an employer from dismissing any worker on account of any particular time, place or manner of expending his wages. Certain exemptions to the prohibition of payment otherwise than in coin were provided for in the act of 1831, if an agreement were made in writing and signed by the worker, viz. rent, victuals dressed and consumed under the employer's roof, medicine, fuel, provender for beasts of burden used in the trade, materials and tools for use by miners, advances for friendly societies or savings banks; in the case of fuel, provender and tools there was also a proviso that the charge should not exceed the real and true value. The act of 1887 amended these provisions by requiring a correct annual audit in the case of deductions for medicine or tools, by permitting part payment of servants in husbandry in food, drink (not intoxicants) or other allowances, and by prohibiting any deductions for sharpening or repairing workmen's tools except by agreement not forming part of the condition of hiring. Two important administrative amendments were made by the act of 1887: (1) a section similar to that in the Factory and Mines Acts was added, empowering the employer to exempt himself from penalty for contravention of the acts on proof that any other person was the actual offender and of his own due diligence in enforcing the execution of the acts; (2) the duty of enforcing the acts in factories, workshops, and mines was imposed upon the inspectors of the Factory and Mines Departments, respectively, of the Home Office, and to their task they were empowered to bring all the authorities and powers which they possessed in virtue of the acts under which they are appointed; these inspectors thus prosecute defaulting employers and recover penalties under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts, but they do not undertake civil proceedings for improper deductions or payments, proceedings for which would lie with workmen under the Employers and Workmen Act 1875. The persons to whom the benefits of the act applied were added to by the act of 1887, which repealed the complicated list of trades contained in the principal act and substituted the simpler definition of the Employers and Workmen Act, 1875. Thus the acts 1831 to 1887, and also the act of 1896, apply to all workers (men, women and children) engaged in manual labour, except domestic servants; they apply not only in mines, factories and workshops, but, to quote the published Home Office Memorandum on the acts, "in all places where workpeople are engaged in manual labour under a contract with an employer, whether or no the employer be an owner or agent or a parent, or be himself a workman; and therefore a workman who employs and pays others under him must also observe the Truck Acts." The law thus in certain circumstances covers outworkers for a contractor or sub-contractor. A decision of the High Court at Dublin in 1900 (_Squire_ v. _Sweeney_) strengthened the inspectors in investigation of offences committed amongst outworkers by supporting the contention that inquiry and exercise of all the powers of an inspector could legally take place in parts of an employer's premises other than those in which the work is given out. It defined for Ireland, in a narrower sense than had hitherto been understood and acted upon by the Factory Department, the classes of outworkers protected, by deciding that only such as were under a contract personally to execute the work were covered. In 1905 the law in England was similarly declared in the decided case of _Squire_ v. _The Midland Lace Co._ The judges (Lord Alverstone, C.J.; and Kennedy and Ridley, J.J.) stated that they came to the conclusion with "reluctance," and said: "We venture to express the hope that some amendment of the law may be made so as to extend the protection of the Truck Act to a class of workpeople indistinguishable from those already within its provisions." The workers in question were lace-clippers taking out work to do in their homes, and in the words of the High Court decision "though they do sometimes employ assistants are evidently, as a class, wage-earning manual labourers and not contractors in the ordinary and popular sense." The principle relied on in the decision was that in the case of _Ingram_ v. _Barnes_.

Meaning of "wages."

The Truck Act 1896.

At the time of the passing of the act of 1887 it seems to have been generally believed that the obligation under the principal act to pay the "entire amount of wages earned" in coin rendered illegal any deductions from wages in respect of fines. Important decisions in 1888 and 1889 showed this belief to have been ill-founded. The essential point lies in the definition of the word "wages" as the "recompense, reward or remuneration of labour," which implies not necessarily any gross sum in question between employer and workmen where there is a contract to perform a certain piece of work, but that part of it, the real _net_ wage, which the workman was to get as his _recompense_ for the labour performed. As soon as it became clear that excessive deductions from wages as well as payments by workers for materials used in the work were not illegal, and that deductions or payments by way of compensation to employers or by way of discipline might legally (with the single exception of fines for lateness for women and children, regulated by the Employers and Workmen Act 1875) even exceed the degree of loss, hindrance or damage to the employer, it also came clearly into view that further legislation was desirable to extend the principles at the root of the Truck Acts. It was desirable, that is to say, to hinder more fully the unfair dealing that may be encouraged by half-defined customs in workplaces, on the part of the employer in making a contract, while at the same time leaving the principle of freedom of contract as far as possible untouched. The Truck Act of 1896 regulates the conditions under which deductions can be made by or payments made to the employer, out of the "sum contracted to be paid to the worker," i.e. out of any gross sum whatever agreed upon between employer and workman. It makes such deductions or payments illegal unless they are in pursuance of a contract; and it provides that deductions (or payments) for (a) fines, (b) bad work and damaged goods, (c) materials, machines, and any other thing provided by the employer in relation to the work shall be reasonable, and that particulars of the same in writing shall be given to the workman. In none of the cases mentioned is the employer to make any profit; neither by fines, for they may only be imposed in respect of acts or omissions which cause, or are likely to cause, loss or damage; nor by sale of materials, for the price may not exceed the cost to the employer; nor by deductions or payments for damage, for these may not exceed the actual or estimated loss to the employer. Fines and charges for damage must be "fair and reasonable having regard to all the circumstances of the case," and no contract could make legal a fine which a court held to be unfair to the workman in the sense of the act. The contract between the employer and workman must either be in writing signed by the workman, or its terms must be clearly stated in a notice constantly affixed in a place easily accessible to the workman to whom, if a party to the contract, a copy shall be given at the time of making the contract, and who shall be entitled, on request, to obtain from the employer a copy of the notice free of charge. On each occasion when a deduction or payment is made, full particulars in writing must be supplied to the workman. The employer is bound to keep a register of deductions or payments, and to enter therein particulars of any fine made under the contract, specifying the amount and nature of the act or omission in respect of which the fine was imposed. This register must be at all times open to inspectors of mines or factories, who are entitled to make a copy of the contract or any part of it. This act as a whole applies to all workmen included under the earlier Truck Acts; the sections relating to fines apply also to shop assistants. The latter, however, apparently are left to enforce the provisions of the law themselves, as no inspectorate is empowered to intervene on their behalf. In these and other cases a prosecution under the Truck Acts may be instituted by any person. Any workman or shop assistant may recover any sum deducted by or paid to his employer contrary to the act of 1896, provided that proceedings are commenced within six months, and that where he has acquiesced in the deduction or payment he shall only recover the excess over the amount which the court may find to have been fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the case. It is expressly declared in the act that nothing in it shall affect the provisions 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 10½ 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 10½, 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 or educational character are included. The persons protected are girls and women under 21 years, and boys under 16; and women over 21 only find a place in the law through the prohibition of their employment within four weeks after childbirth. As the hours of labour of adult women remain ordinarily unlimited by law, so are the hours of boys from 16 to 21. The law of Sunday rest dated the 17th of July 1905, however, applies to labour generally in all industrial and commercial undertakings except transport and fisheries, with certain regulated exceptions for (a) cases of breakdown or urgency due to _force majeure_, (b) certain repairs and cleaning, (c) perishable materials, (d) retail food supply. Young workers are excluded from the exceptions. The absolute prohibitions of employment are: for children under 12 years in any industry, manufacturing or mining or transport, and for women and girls under 21 years below the surface in working of mines. Boys under 16 years and women and girls under 21 years may in general not be employed before 5 A.M. or after 9 P.M., and one day in the seven is to be set apart for rest from employment; to these rules exception may be made either by royal decree for classes or groups of processes, or by local authorities in exceptional cases. The exceptions may be applied, generally, only to workers over 14 years, but in mines, by royal decree, boys over 12 years may be employed from 4 A.M. The law of 1889 fixes only a maximum of 12 hours of effective work, to be interrupted by pauses for rest of not less than 1½ hours, empowering the king by decree to formulate more precise limits suited to the special circumstances of individual industries. Royal decrees have accordingly laid down the conditions for many groups, including textile trades, manufacture of paper, pottery, glass, clothing, mines, quarries, engineering and printing works. In some the daily limit is 10 hours, but in more 10½ or 11 hours. In a few exceptionally unhealthy trades, such as the manufacture of lucifer matches, vulcanization of india-rubber by means of carbon bi-sulphide, the age of exclusion from employment has been raised, and in the last-named process hours have been reduced to 5, broken into two spells of 2½ hours each. As a rule the conditions of health and safeguarding of employments in exceptionally injurious trades have been sought by a series of decrees under the law of 1863 relating to public health in such industries. Special regulations for safety of workers have been introduced in manufactures of white-lead, oxides of lead, chromate of lead, lucifer match works, rag and shoddy works; and for dangers common to many industries, provisions against dust, poisons, accidents and other risks to health or limb have been codified in a decree of 1896. A royal decree of the 31st of March 1903 prohibits employment of persons under 16 years in fur-pulling and in carotting of rabbit skins, and another of the 13th of May 1905 regulates use of lead in house-painting. In 1898 a law was passed to enable the authorities to deal with risks in quarries under the same procedure. Safety in mines (which are not private property, but state concessions to be worked under strict state control) has been provided for since 1810. In matters of hygiene, until 1899 the powers of the public health authorities to intervene were insufficient, and a law was passed authorizing the government to make regulations for every kind of risk in any undertaking, whether classed under the law of public health or not. By a special law of 1888 children and young persons under 18 years are excluded from employment as pedlars, hawkers or in circuses, except by their parents, and then only if they have attained 14 years. Abuses of the truck system have, since 1887, been regulated with care. The chief objects of the law of 1887 were to secure payment in full to all workers, other than those in agriculture or domestic service, of wages in legal tender, to prohibit payment of wages in public-houses, and to secure prompt payment of wages. Certain deductions were permitted under careful control for specific customary objects: lodging, use of land, uniforms, food, firing. A royal order of the 10th of October 1903 required use of automatic indicators for estimating wages in certain cases in textile processes. The law of the 15th of June 1896 regulates the affixing in workplaces, where at least five workers are employed, of a notice of the working rules, the nature and rate of fines, if any, and the mode of their application. Two central services the mines inspectorate and the factory and workshop inspectorate, divide the duties above indicated. There is also a system of local administration of the regulations relating to industries classed as unhealthy, but the tendency has been to give the supreme control in these matters to the factory service, with its expert staff.

_Holland._--The first law for regulation of labour in manufacture was passed in 1874, and this related only to employment of children. The basis of all existing regulations was established in the law of the 5th of May 1889, which applies to all industrial undertakings, excluding agriculture and forestry, fishing, stock-rearing. Employment of children under 12 years is prohibited, and hours are limited for young persons under 16 and for women of any age. These protected persons may be excluded by royal decree from unhealthy industries, and such industries are specified in a decree of 1897 which supersedes other earlier regulations. Hours of employment must not exceed 11 in the 24, and at least one hour for rest must be given between 11 A.M. and 3 P.M., which hour must not be spent in a workroom. Work before 5 A.M. or after 7 P.M., Sunday work, and work on recognized holidays is generally prohibited, but there are exceptions. Overtime from 7 to 10 P.M., under conditions, is allowed for women and young workers, and Sunday work for women, for example, in butter and cheese making, and night work for boys over 14 in certain industries. Employment of women within four weeks of childbirth is prohibited. Notices of working hours must be affixed in workplaces. Underground work in mines is prohibited for women and young persons under 16, but in Holland mining is a very small industry. In 1895 the first legislative provision was made for protection of workers against risk of accident or special injury to health. Sufficient cubic space, lighting, ventilation, sanitary accommodation, reasonable temperature, removal of noxious gases or dust, fencing of machinery, precautions against risk from fire and other matters are provided for. The manufacture of lucifer matches by means of white phosphorus was forbidden and the export, importation and sale was regulated by a law of the 28th of May 1901. By a regulation of the 16th of March 1904 provisions for safety and health of women and young workers were strengthened in processes where lead compounds or other poisons are used, and their employment at certain dangerous machines and in cleaning machinery or near driving belts was prohibited. No penal provision against truck exists in Holland, but possibly abuses of the system are prevented by the existence of industrial councils representing both employers and workers, with powers to mediate or arbitrate in case of disputes.

_Switzerland._--In Switzerland separate cantonal legislation prepared the way for the general Federal labour law of 1877 on which subsequent legislation rests. Such legislation is also cantonal as well as Federal, but in the latter there is only amplification or interpretation of the principles contained in the law of 1877, whereas cantonal legislation covers industries not included under the Federal law, e.g. single workers employed in a trade (_métier_) and employment in shops, offices and hotels. The Federal law is applied to factories, workshops employing young persons under 18 or more than 10 workers, and workshops in which unhealthy or dangerous processes are carried on. Mines are not included, but are regulated in some respects as regards health and safety by cantonal laws. Further, the Law of Employers' Liability 1881-1887, which requires in all industries precautions against accidents and reports of all serious accidents to the cantonal governments, applies to mines. This led, in 1896, to the creation of a special mining department, and mines, of which there are few, have to be inspected once a year by a mining engineer. The majority of the provisions of the Federal labour law apply to adult workers of both sexes, and the general limit of the 11-hours' day, exclusive of at least one hour for meals, applies to men as well as women. The latter have, however, a legal claim, when they have a household to manage, to leave work at the dinner-hour half an hour earlier than the men. Men and unmarried women may be employed in such subsidiary work as cleaning before or after the general legal limits. On Saturdays and eves of the eight public holidays the 11-hours' day is reduced to 10. Sunday work and night work are forbidden, but exceptions are permitted conditionally. Night work is defined as 8 P.M. to 5 A.M. in summer, 8 P.M. to 6 A.M. in winter. Children are excluded from employment in workplaces under the law until 14 years of age, and until 16 must attend continuation schools. Zürich canton has fixed the working day for women at 10 hours generally, and 9 hours on Saturdays and eves of holidays. Bâle-Ville canton has the same limits and provides that the very limited Sunday employment permitted shall be compensated by double time off on another day. In the German-speaking cantons girls under 18 are not permitted to work overtime; in all cantons except Glarus the conditional overtime of 2 hours must be paid for at an enhanced wage.

Sanitary regulations and fencing of machinery are provided for with considerable minuteness in a Federal decree of 1897. The plans of every new factory must be submitted to the cantonal government. In the case of lucifer match factories, not only the building but methods of manufacture must be submitted. Since 1901 the manufacture, sale and import of matches containing white phosphorus have been forbidden. Women must be absent from employment during eight weeks before and after childbirth. In certain dangerous occupations, e.g. where lead or lead compounds are in use, women may not legally be employed during pregnancy. A resolution of the federal council in 1901 classed thirty-four different substances in use in industry as dangerous and laid down that in case of clearly defined illness of workers directly caused by use of any of these substances the liability provided by article 3 of the law of the 25th of June 1881, and article 1 of the law of the 26th of April 1887, should apply to the manufacture. Legislative provision against abuses of the truck system appears to be of earlier origin in Switzerland (17th century) than any other European country outside England (15th century). The Federal Labour Law 1877 generally prohibits payment of wages otherwise than in current coin, and provides that no deduction shall be made without an express contract. Some of the cantonal laws go much farther than the British act of 1896 in forbidding certain deductions; e.g. Zürich prohibits any charge for cleaning, warming or lighting workrooms or for hire of machinery. By the Federal law fines may not exceed half a day's wage. Administration of the Labour laws is divided between inspectors appointed by the Federal Government and local authorities, under supervision of the cantonal governments. The Federal Government forms a court of appeal against decisions of the cantonal governments.

_Germany._--Regulation of the conditions of labour in industry throughout the German empire is provided for in the Imperial Industrial Code and the orders of the Federal Council based thereon. By far the most important recent amendment socially is the law regulating child-labour, dated the 30th of March 1903, which relates to establishments having industrial character in the sense of the Industrial Code. This Code is based on earlier industrial codes of the separate states, but more especially on the Code of 1869 of the North German Confederation. It applies in whole or in part to all trades and industrial occupations, except transport, fisheries and agriculture. Mines are only included so far as truck, Sunday and holiday rest, prohibition of employment underground of female labour, limitation of the hours of women and young workers are concerned; otherwise the regulations for protection of life and limb of miners vary, as do the mining laws of the different states. To estimate the force of the Industrial Code in working, it is necessary to bear in mind the complicated political history of the empire, the separate administration by the federated states, and the generally considerable powers vested in administration of initiating regulations. The Industrial Code expressly retains power for the states to initiate certain additions or exceptions to the Code which in any given state may form part of the law regulating factories there. The Code (unlike the Austrian Industrial Code) lays down no general limit for a normal working day for adult male workers, but since 1891 full powers were given to the Imperial government to limit hours for any classes of workers in industries where excessive length of the working day endangers the health of the worker (R.G.O. § 120e). Previously application had been made of powers to reduce the working day in such unhealthy industries as silvering of mirrors by mercury and the manufacture of white-lead. Separate states had, under mining laws, also limited hours of miners. Sunday rest was, in 1891, secured for every class of workers, commercial, industrial and mining. Annual holidays were also secured on church festivals. These provisions, however, are subject to exceptions under conditions. An important distinction has to be shown when we turn to the regulations for hours and times of labour for protected persons (women, young persons and children). Setting aside for the moment hours of shop assistants (which are under special sections since 1900), it is to "factory workers" and not to industrial workers in general that these limits apply, although they may be, and in some instances have been, further extended--for instance, in ready-made clothing trades--by imperial decree to workshops, and by the Child Labour Law of 1903 regulation of the scope and duration of employment of children is much strengthened in workshops, commerce, transport and domestic industries. The term "factory" (_Fabrik_) is not defined in the Code, but it is clear from various decisions of the supreme court that it only in part coincides with the English term, and that some workplaces, where processes are carried on by aid of mechanical power, rank rather as English workshops. The distinction is rather between wholesale manufacturing industry, with subdivision of labour, and small industry, where the employer works himself. Certain classes of undertaking, viz. forges, timber-yards, dockyards, brickfields and open quarries, are specifically ranked as factories. Employment of protected persons at the surface of mines and underground quarries, and in salt works and ore-dressing works, and of boys underground comes under the factory regulations. These exclude children from employment under 13 years, and even later if an educational certificate has not been obtained; until 14 years hours of employment may not exceed 6 in the 24. In processes and occupations under the scope of the Child Labour Law children may not be employed by their parents or guardians before 10 years of age or by other employers before 12 years of age; nor between the hours of 8 P.M. and 8 A.M., nor otherwise than in full compliance with requirements of educational authorities for school attendance and with due regard to prescribed pauses. In school term time the daily limit of employment for children is three hours, in holiday time three hours. As regards factories Germany, unlike Great Britain, France and Switzerland, requires a shorter day for young persons than for women--10 hours for the former, 11 hours for the latter. Women over 16 years may be employed 11 hours. Night work is forbidden, i.e. work between 8.30 P.M. and 5.30 A.M. Overtime may be granted to meet unforeseen pressure or for work on perishable articles, under conditions, by local authorities and the higher administrative authorities. Prescribed meal-times are--an unbroken half-hour for children in their 6 hours; for young persons a mid-day pause of one hour, and half an hour respectively in the morning and afternoon spells; for women, an hour at mid-day, but women with the care of a household have the claim, on demand, to an extra half-hour, as in Switzerland. No woman may be employed within four weeks after childbirth, and unless a medical certificate can then be produced, the absence must extend to six weeks. Notice of working periods and meal-times must be affixed, and copies sent to the local authorities. Employment of protected persons in factory industries where there are special risks to health or morality may be forbidden or made dependent on special conditions. By the Child Labour Law employment of children is forbidden in brickworks, stone breaking, chimney sweeping, street cleaning and other processes and occupations. By an order of the Federal Council in 1902 female workers were excluded from main processes in forges and rolling mills. All industrial employers alike are bound to organize labour in such a manner as to secure workers against injury to health and to ensure good conduct and propriety. Sufficient light, suitable cloakrooms and sanitary accommodation, and ventilation to carry off dust, vapours and other impurities are especially required. Dining-rooms may be ordered by local authorities. Fencing and provision for safety in case of fire are required in detail. The work of the trade accident insurance associations in preventing accidents is especially recognized in provisions for special rules in dangerous or unhealthy industries. Officials of the state factory departments are bound to give opportunity to trustees of the trade associations to express an opinion on special rules. In a large number of industries the Federal Council has laid down special rules comparable with those for unhealthy occupations in Great Britain. Among the regulations most recently revised and strengthened are those for manufacture of lead colours and lead compounds, and for horse-hair and brush-making factories. The relations between the state inspectors of factories and the ordinary police authorities are regulated in each state by its constitution. Prohibitions of truck in its original sense--that is, payment of wages otherwise than in current coin--apply to any persons under a contract of service with an employer for a specified time for industrial purposes; members of a family working for a parent or husband are not included; outworkers are covered. Control of fines and deductions from wages applies only in factory industries and shops employing at least 20 workers. Shop hours are regulated by requiring shops to be closed generally between 9 P.M. and 5 A.M., by requiring a fixed mid-day rest of 1½ hours and at least 10 hours' rest in the 24 for assistants. These limits can be modified by administrative authority. Notice of hours and working rules must be affixed. During the hours of compulsory closing sale of goods on the streets or from house to house is forbidden. Under the Commercial Code, as under the Civil Code, every employer is bound to adopt every possible measure for maintaining the safety, health and good conduct of his employés. By an order of the Imperial Chancellor under the Commercial Code seats must be provided for commercial assistants and apprentices.

_Austria._--The Industrial Code of Austria, which in its present outline (modified by later enactments) dates from 1883, must be carefully distinguished from the Industrial Code of the kingdom of Hungary. The latter is, owing to the predominantly agricultural character of the population, of later origin, and hardly had practical force before the law of 1893 provided for inspection and prevention of accidents in factories. No separate mining code exists in Hungary, and conditions of labour are regulated by the Austrian law of 1854. The truck system is repressed on lines similar to those in Austria and Germany. As regards limitation of hours of adult labour, Hungary may be contrasted with both those empires in that no restriction of hours applies either to men's or women's hours, whereas in Austrian factories both are limited to an 11-hours' day with exceptional overtime for which payment must always be made to the worker. The Austrian Code has its origin, however, like the British Factory Acts, in protection of child labour. Its present scope is determined by the Imperial "Patent" of 1859, and all industrial labour is included except mining, transport, fisheries, forestry, agriculture and domestic industries. Factories are defined as including industries in which a "manufacturing process is carried on in an enclosed place by the aid of not less than twenty workers working with machines, with subdivision of labour, and under an employer who does not himself manually assist in the work." In smaller handicraft industries the compulsory gild system of organization still applies. In every industrial establishment, large or small, the sanitary and safety provisions, general requirement of Sunday rest, and annual holidays (with conditional exceptions), prohibition of truck and limitation of the ages of child labour apply. Night work for women, 8 P.M. to 5 A.M., is prohibited only in factory industries; for young workers it is prohibited in any industry. Pauses in work are required in all industries; one hour at least must be given at mid-day, and if the morning and afternoon spells exceed 5 hours each, another half-hour's rest at least must be given. Children may not be employed in industrial work before 12 years, and then only 8 hours a day at work that is not injurious and if educational requirements are observed. The age of employment is raised to 14 for "factories," and the work must be such as will not hinder physical development. Women may not be employed in regular industrial occupation within one month after childbirth. In certain scheduled unhealthy industries, where certificates of authorization from local authorities must be obtained by intending occupiers, conditions of health and safety for workers can be laid down in the certificate. The Minister of the Interior is empowered to draw up regulations prohibiting or making conditions for the employment of young workers or women in dangerous or unhealthy industries. The provisions against truck cover not only all industrial workers engaged in manual labour under a contract with an employer, but also shop-assistants; the special regulations against fines and deductions apply to factory workers and shops where at least 20 workers are employed. In mines under the law of 1884, which supplements the general mining law, employment of women and girls underground is prohibited; boys from 12 to 16 and girls from 12 to 18 may only be employed at light work above ground; 14 is the earliest age of admission for boys underground. The shifts from bank to bank must not exceed 12 hours, of which not more than 10 may be effective work. Sunday rest must begin not later than 6 A.M., and must be of 24 hours' duration. These last two provisions do not hold in case of pressing danger for safety, health or property. Sick and accident funds and mining associations are legislated for in minutest detail. The general law provides for safety in working, but special rules drawn up by the district authorities lay down in detail the conditions of health and safety. As regards manufacturing industry, the Industrial Code lays no obligation on employers to report accidents, and until the Accident Insurance Law of 1889 came into force no statistics were available. In Austria, unlike Germany, the factory inspectorate is organized throughout under a central chief inspector.

_Scandinavian Countries._--In Sweden the Factory Law was amended in January 1901; in Denmark in July 1901. Until that year, however, Norway was in some respects in advance of the other two countries by its law of 1892, which applied to industrial works, including metal works of all kinds and mining. Women were thereby prohibited from employment: (a) underground; (b) in cleaning or oiling machinery in motion; (c) during six weeks after childbirth, unless provided with a medical certificate stating that they might return at the end of four weeks without injury to health; (d) in dangerous, unhealthy or exhausting trades during pregnancy. Further, work on Sundays and public holidays is prohibited to all workers, adult and youthful, with conditional exceptions under the authority of the inspectors. Children over 12 are admitted to industrial work on obtaining certificates of birth, of physical fitness and of elementary education. The hours of children are limited to 6, with pauses, and of young persons (of 14 to 18 years) to 10, with pauses. Night work between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M. is prohibited. All workers are entitled to a copy of a code of factory rules containing the terms of the contract of work drawn up by representatives of employés with the employers and sanctioned by the inspector. Health and safety in working are provided for in detail in the same law of 1892. Special rules may be made for dangerous trades, and in 1899 such rules were established for match factories, similar to some of the British rules, but notably providing for a dental examination four times yearly by a doctor. In Denmark, regulation began with unhealthy industries, and it was not until the law of 1901 came into force, on the 1st of January 1902, that children under 12 years have been excluded from factory labour. Control of child labour can be strengthened by municipal regulation, and this has been done in Copenhagen by an order of the 23rd of May 1903. In Sweden the 12 years' limit had for some time held in the larger factories; the scope has been extended so that it corresponds with the Norwegian law. The hours of children are, in Denmark, 6½ for those under 14 years; in Sweden 6 for those under 13 years. Young persons may not in either country work more than 10 hours daily, and night work, which is forbidden for persons under 18 years, is now defined as in Norway. Women may not be employed in industry within four weeks of childbirth, except on authority of a medical certificate. All factories in Sweden where young workers are employed are subject to medical inspection once a year. Fencing of machinery and hygienic conditions (ventilation, cubic space, temperature, light) are regulated in detail. In Denmark the use of white phosphorus in manufacture of lucifer matches has been prohibited since 1874, and special regulations have been drawn up by administrative orders which strengthen control of various unhealthy or dangerous industries, e.g. dry-cleaning works, printing works and type foundries, iron foundries and engineering works. A special act of the 6th of April 1906 regulates labour and sanitary conditions in bakehouses and confectionery works.

_Italy and Spain._--The wide difference between the industrial development of these southern Latin countries and the two countries with which this summary begins, and the far greater importance of the agricultural interests, produced a situation, as regards labour legislation until as recently as 1903, which makes it convenient to touch on the comparatively limited scope of their regulations at the close of the series. It was stated by competent and impartial observers from each of the two countries, at the International Congress on Labour Laws held at Brussels in 1897, that the lack of adequate measures for protection of child labour and inefficient administration of such regulations as exist was then responsible for abuse of their forces that could be found in no other European countries. "Their labour in factories, workshops, and mines constitutes a veritable martyrdom" (Spain). "I believe that there is no country where a sacrifice of child life is made that is comparable with that in certain Italian factories and industries" (Italy). In both countries important progress has since been made in organizing inspection and preventing accidents. In Spain the first step in the direction of limitation of women's hours of labour was taken by a law of 1900, which took effect in 1902, in regulations for reduction of hours of labour for adults to 11, normally, in the 24. Hours of children under 14 must not exceed 6 in any industrial work nor 8 in any commercial undertaking. Labour before the age of 10 years and night work between 6 P.M. and 5 A.M. was prohibited, and powers were taken to extend the prohibition of night work to young persons under 16 years. The labour of children in Italy was until 1902 regulated in the main by a law of 1886, but a royal decree of 1899 strengthened it by classing night work for children under 12 years as "injurious," such work being thereby generally prohibited for them, though exceptions are admitted; at the same time it was laid down that children from 12 to 15 years might not be employed for more than 6 hours at night. The law of 1886 prohibits employment of children under 9 years in industry and under 10 years in underground mining. Night work for women was in Italy first prohibited by the law of the 19th of June 1902, and at the same time also for boys under 15, but this regulation was not to take full effect for 5 years as regards persons already so employed; by the same law persons under 15 and women of any age were accorded the claim to one day's complete rest of 24 hours in the week; the age of employment of children in factories, workshops, laboratories, quarries, mines, was raised to 12 years generally and 14 years for underground work; the labour of female workers of any age was prohibited in underground work, and power was reserved to further restrict and regulate their employment as well as that of male workers under 15. Spain and Italy, the former by the law of the 13th of March 1900, the latter by the law of the 19th of June 1902, prohibit the employment of women within a fixed period of childbirth; in Spain the limit is three weeks, in Italy one month, which may be reduced to three weeks on a medical certificate of fitness. Sunday rest is secured in industrial works, with regulated exceptions in Spain by the law of the 3rd of March 1904. It is in the direction of fencing and other safeguards against accidents and as regards sanitary provisions, both in industrial workplaces and in mines, that Italy has made most advance since her law of 1890 for prevention of accidents. Special measures for prevention of malaria are required in cultivation of rice by a ministerial circular of the 23rd of April 1903; work may not begin until an hour after sunrise and must cease an hour before sunset; children under 13 may not be employed in this industry. (A. M, An.)

IV. UNITED STATES

History.

Under the general head of Labour Legislation all American statute laws regulating labour, its conditions, and the relation of employer and employé must be classed. It includes what is properly known as factory legislation. Labour legislation belongs to the latter half of the 19th century, so far as the United States is concerned. Like England in the far past, the Americans in colonial days undertook to regulate wages and prices, and later the employment of apprentices. Legislation relating to wages and prices was long ago abandoned, but the laws affecting the employment of apprentices still exist in some form, although conditions of employment have changed so materially that apprenticeships are not entered as of old; but the laws regulating the employment of apprentices were the basis on which English legislation found a foothold when parliament wished to regulate the labour of factory operatives. The code of labour laws of the present time is almost entirely the result of the industrial revolution during the latter part of the 18th century, under which the domestic or hand-labour system was displaced through the introduction of power machinery. As this revolution took place in the United States at a somewhat later date than in England, the labour legislation necessitated by it belongs to a later date. The factory, so far as textiles are concerned, was firmly established in America during the period from 1820 to 1840, and it was natural that the English legislation found friends and advocates in the United States, although the more objectionable conditions accompanying the English factory were not to be found there.

Early attempts to regulate hours.

The first attempt to secure legislation regulating factory employment related to the hours of labour, which were very long--from twelve to thirteen hours a day. As machinery was introduced it was felt that the tension resulting from speeded machines and the close attention required in the factory ought to be accompanied by a shorter work-day. This view took firm hold of the operatives, and was the chief cause of the agitation which has resulted in a great body of laws applying in very many directions. As early as 1806 the caulkers and shipbuilders of New York City agitated for a reduction of hours to ten per day, but no legislation followed. There were several other attempts to secure some regulation relative to hours, but there was no general agitation prior to 1831. As Massachusetts was the state which first recognized the necessity of regulating employment (following in a measure, and so far as conditions demanded, the English labour or factory legislation), the history of such legislation in that state is indicative of that in the United States, and as it would be impossible in this article to give a detailed history of the origin of laws in the different states, the dates of their enactment, and their provisions, it is best to follow primarily the course of the Eastern states, and especially that of Massachusetts, where the first general agitation took place and the first laws were enacted. That state in 1836 regulated by law the question of the education of young persons employed in manufacturing establishments. The regulation of hours of labour was warmly discussed in 1832, and several legislative committees and commissions reported upon it, but no specific action on the general question of hours of labour secured the indorsement of the Massachusetts legislature until 1874, although the day's labour of children under twelve years of age was limited to ten hours in 1842. Ten hours constituted a day's labour, on a voluntary basis, in many trades in Massachusetts and other parts of the country as early as 1853, while in the shipbuilding trades this was the work-day in 1844. In April 1840 President Van Buren issued an order "that all public establishments will hereafter be regulated, as to working hours, by the ten-hours system." The real aggressive movement began in 1845, through numerous petitions to the Massachusetts legislature urging a reduction of the day's labour to eleven hours, but nothing came of these petitions at that time. Again, in 1850, a similar effort was made, and also in 1851 and 1852, but the bills failed. Then there was a period of quiet until 1865, when an unpaid commission made a report relative to the hours of labour, and recommended the establishment of a bureau of statistics for the purpose of collecting data bearing upon the labour question. This was the first step in this direction in any country. The first bureau of the kind was established in Massachusetts in 1869, but meanwhile, in accordance with reports of commissions and the address of Governor Bullock in 1866, and the general sentiment which then prevailed, the legislature passed an act regulating in a measure the conditions of the employment of children in manufacturing establishments; and this is one of the first laws of the kind in the United States, although the first legislation in the United States relating to the hours of labour which the writer has been able to find, and for which he can fix a date, was enacted by the state of Pennsylvania in 1849, the law providing that ten hours should be a day's work in cotton, woollen, paper, bagging, silk and flax factories.

Employment of children.

The Massachusetts law of 1866 provided, firstly, that no child under ten should be employed in any manufacturing establishment, and that no child between ten and fourteen should be so employed unless he had attended some public or private school at least six months during the year preceding such employment, and, further, that such employment should not continue unless the child attended school at least six months in each and every year; secondly, a penalty not exceeding $50 for every owner or agent or other person knowingly employing a child in violation of the act; thirdly, that no child under the age of fourteen should be employed in any manufacturing establishment more than eight hours in any one day; fourthly, that any parent or guardian allowing or consenting to employment in violation of the act should forfeit a sum not to exceed $50 for each offence; fifthly, that the Governor instruct the state constable and his deputies to enforce the provisions of all laws for regulating the employment of children in manufacturing establishments. The same legislature also created a commission of three persons, whose duty it was to investigate the subject of hours of labour in relation to the social, educational and sanitary condition of the working classes. In 1867 a fundamental law relating to schooling and hours of labour of children employed in manufacturing and mechanical establishments was passed by the Massachusetts legislature. It differed from the act of the year previous in some respects, going deeper into the general question. It provided that no child under ten should be employed in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment of the commonwealth, and that no child between ten and fifteen should be so employed unless he had attended school, public or private, at least three months during the year next preceding his employment. There were provisions relating to residence, &c., and a further provision that no time less than 120 half-days of actual schooling should be deemed an equivalent of three months, and that no child under fifteen should be employed in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment more than sixty hours any one week. The law also provided penalties for violation. It repealed the act of 1866.

In 1869 began the establishment of that chain of offices in the United States, the principle of which has been adopted by other countries, known as bureaus of statistics of labour, their especial purpose being the collection and dissemination of information relating to all features of industrial employment. As a result of the success of the first bureau, bureaus are in existence in thirty-three states, in addition to the United States Bureau of Labour.

A special piece of legislation which belongs to the commonwealth of Massachusetts, so far as experience shows, was that in 1872, providing for cheap morning and evening trains for the accommodation of working men living in the vicinity of Boston. Great Britain had long had such trains, which were called parliamentary trains. Under the Massachusetts law some of the railways running out of Boston furnished the accommodation required, and the system has since been in operation.

Factory legislation, 1877.

In different parts of the country the agitation to secure legislation regulating the hours of labour became aggressive again in 1870 and the years immediately following, there being a constant repetition of attempts to secure the enactment of a ten-hours law, but in Massachusetts all the petitions failed till 1874, when the legislature of that commonwealth established the hours of labour at sixty per week not only for children under eighteen, but for women, the law providing that no minor under eighteen and no woman over that age should be employed by any person, firm or corporation in any manufacturing establishment more than ten hours in any one day. In 1876 Massachusetts reconstructed its laws relating to the employment of children, although it did not abrogate the principles involved in earlier legislation, while in 1877 the commonwealth passed Factory Acts covering the general provisions of the British laws. It provided for the general inspection of factories and public buildings, the provisions of the law relating to dangerous machinery, such as belting, shafting, gearing, drums, &c., which the legislature insisted must be securely guarded, and that no machinery other than steam engines should be cleaned while running. The question of ventilation and cleanliness was also attended to. Dangers connected with hoistways, elevators and well-holes were minimized by their protection by sufficient trap-doors, while fire-escapes were made obligatory on all establishments of three or more storeys in height. All main doors, both inside and outside, of manufacturing establishments, as well as those of churches, school-rooms, town halls, theatres and every building used for public assemblies, should open outwardly whenever the factory inspectors of the commonwealth deemed it necessary. These provisions remain in the laws of Massachusetts, and other states have found it wise to follow them.

The labour legislation in force in 1910 in the various states of the Union might be classified in two general branches: (A) protective labour legislation, or laws for the aid of workers who, on account of their economic dependence, are not in a position fully to protect themselves; (B) legislation having for its purpose the fixing of the legal status of the worker as an employé, such as laws relating to the making and breaking of the labour contract, the right to form organizations and to assemble peaceably, the settlement of labour disputes, the licensing of occupations, &c.

Factory and workshop acts.

(A) The first class includes factory and workshop acts, laws relating to hours of labour, work on Sundays and holidays, the payment of wages, the liability of employers for injuries to their employés, &c. Factory acts have been passed by nearly all the states of the Union. These may be considered in two groups--first, laws which relate to conditions of employment and affect only children, young persons and women; and second, laws which relate to the sanitary condition of factories and workshops and to the safety of employés generally. The states adopting such laws have usually made provision for factory inspectors, whose duties are to enforce these laws and who have power to enter and inspect factories and workshops. The most common provisions of the factory acts in the various states are those which fix an age limit below which employment is unlawful. All but five states have enacted such provisions, and these five states have practically no manufacturing industries. In some states the laws fixing an age limit are restricted in their application to factories, while in others they extend also to workshops, bakeries, mercantile establishments and other work places where children are employed. The prescribed age limit varies from ten to fourteen years. Provisions concerning the education of children in factories and workshops may be considered in two groups, those relating to apprenticeship and those requiring a certain educational qualification as a pre-requisite to employment. Apprenticeship laws are numerous, but they do not now have great force, because of the practical abrogation of the apprenticeship system through the operation of modern methods of production. Most states have provisions prohibiting illiterates under a specified age, usually sixteen, from being employed in factories and workshops. The provisions of the factory acts relating to hours of labour and night work generally affect only the employment of women and young persons. Most of the states have enacted such provisions, those limiting the hours of children occurring more frequently than those limiting the hours of women. The hour limit for work in such cases ranges from six per day to sixty-six per week. Where the working time of children is restricted, the minimum age prescribed for such children ranges from twelve to twenty-one years. In some cases the restriction of the hours of labour of women and children is general, while in others it applies only to employment in one or more classes of industries. Other provisions of law for the protection of women and children, but not usually confined in their operation to factories and workshops, are such as require seats for females and separate toilet facilities for the sexes, and prohibit employment in certain occupations as in mines, places where intoxicants are manufactured or sold, in cleaning or operating dangerous machinery, &c. Provisions of factory acts relating to the sanitary condition of factories and workshops and the safety of employés have been enacted in nearly all the manufacturing states of the Union. They prohibit overcrowding, and require proper ventilation, sufficient light and heat, the lime-washing or painting of walls and ceilings, the provision of exhaust fans and blowers in places where dust or dangerous fumes are generated, guards on machinery, mechanical belts and gearing shifters, guards on elevators and hoistways, hand-rails on stairs, fire-escapes, &c.

Hours of labour.

The statutes relating to hours of labour may be considered under five groups, namely: (1) general laws which merely fix what shall be regarded as a day's labour in the absence of a contract; (2) laws defining what shall constitute a day's work on public roads; (3) laws limiting the hours of labour per day on public works; (4) laws limiting the hours of labour in certain occupations; and (5) laws which specify the hours per day or per week during which women and children may be employed. The statutes included in the first two groups place no restrictions upon the number of hours which may be agreed upon between employers and employés, while those in the other three groups usually limit the freedom of contract and provide penalties for their violation. A considerable number of states have enacted laws which fix a day's labour in the absence of any contract, some at eight and others at ten hours, so that when an employer and an employé make a contract and they do not specify what shall constitute a day's labour, eight or ten hours respectively would be ruled as the day's labour in an action which might come before the courts. In a number of the states it is optional with the citizens to liquidate certain taxes either by cash payments or by rendering personal service. In the latter case the length of the working day is defined by law, eight hours being usually specified. The Federal government and nearly one-half of the states have laws providing that eight hours shall constitute a day's work for employés on public works. Under the Federal Act it is unlawful for any officer of the government or of any contractor or sub-contractor for public works to permit labourers and mechanics to work longer than eight hours per day. The state laws concerning hours of labour have similar provisions. Exceptions are provided for cases of extraordinary emergencies, such as danger to human life or property. In many states the hours of labour have been limited by law in occupations in which, on account of their dangerous or insanitary character, the health of the employés would be jeopardized by long hours of labour, or in which the fatigue occasioned by long hours would endanger the lives of the employés or of the public. The occupations for which such special legislation has been enacted are those of employés on steam and street railways, in mines and other underground workings, smelting and refining works, bakeries and cotton and woollen mills. Laws limiting the hours of labour of women and children have been considered under factory and workshop acts.

Sunday labour.

Nearly all states and Territories of the Union have laws prohibiting the employment of labour on Sunday. These laws usually make it a misdemeanour for persons either to labour themselves or to compel or permit their apprentices, servants or other employés, to labour on the first day of the week. Exceptions are made in the case of household duties or works of necessity or charity, and in the case of members of religious societies who observe some other than the first day of the week.

Payment of wages.

Statutes concerning the payment of wages of employés may be considered in two groups: (1) those which relate to the employment contract, such as laws fixing the maximum period of wage payments, prohibiting the payment of wages in scrip or other evidences of indebtedness in lieu of lawful money, prohibiting wage deductions on account of fines, breakage of machinery, discounts for prepayments, medical attendance, relief funds or other purposes, requiring the giving of notice of reduction of wages, &c.; (2) legislation granting certain privileges or affording special protection to working people with respect to their wages, such as laws exempting wages from attachment, preferring wage claims in assignments, and granting workmen liens upon buildings and other constructions on which they have been employed.

Employers' liability.

Employers' liability laws have been passed to enable an employé to recover damages from his employer under certain conditions when he has been injured through accident occurring in the works of the employer. The common-law maxim that the principal is responsible for the acts of his agent does not apply where two or more persons are working together under the same employer and one of the employés is injured through the carelessness of his fellow-employé, although the one causing the accident is the agent of the principal, who under the common law would be responsible. The old Roman law and the English and American practice under it held that the co-employé was a party to the accident. The injustice of this rule is seen by a single illustration. A weaver in a cotton factory, where there are hundreds of operatives, is injured by the neglect or carelessness of the engineer in charge of the motive power. Under the common law the weaver could not recover damages from the employer, because he was the co-employé of the engineer. So, one of thousands of employés of a railway system, sustaining injuries through the carelessness of a switchman whom he never saw, could recover no damages from the railway company, both being co-employés of the same employer. The injustice of this application of the common-law rule has been recognized, but the only way to avoid the difficulty was through specific legislation providing that under such conditions as those related, and similar ones, the doctrine of co-employment should not apply, and that the workman should have the same right to recover damages as a passenger upon a railway train. This legislation has upset some of the most notable distinctions of law.

The first agitation for legislation of this character occurred in England in 1880. A number of states in the Union have now enacted statutes fixing the liability of employers under certain conditions and relieving the employé from the application of the common-law rule. Where the employé himself is contributory to the injuries resulting from an accident he cannot recover, nor can he recover in some cases where he knows of the danger from the defects of tools or implements employed by him. The legislation upon the subject involves many features of legislation which need not be described here, such as those concerning the power of employés to make a contract, and those defining the conditions, often elaborate, which lead to the liability of the employer and the duties of the employé, and the relations in which damages for injuries sustained in employment may be recovered from the employer.

(B) The statutes thus far considered may be regarded as protective labour legislation. There is, besides, a large body of statutory laws enacted in the various states for the purpose of fixing the legal status of employers and employés and defining their rights and privileges as such.

Labour contract.

A great variety of statutes have been enacted in the various states relating to the labour contract. Among these are laws defining the labour contract, requiring notice of termination of contract, making it a misdemeanour to break a contract of service and thereby endanger human life or expose valuable property to serious injury, or to make a contract of service and accept transportation or pecuniary advancements with intent to defraud, prohibiting contracts of employment whereby employés waive the right to damages in case of injury, &c. A Federal statute makes it a misdemeanour for any one to prepay the transportation or in any way assist or encourage the importation of aliens under contract to perform labour or service of any kind in the United States, exceptions being made in the case of skilled labour that cannot otherwise be obtained, domestic servants and persons belonging to any of the recognized professions.

Licensed occupations.

The Federal government and nearly all the states and territories have statutory provisions requiring the examination and licensing of persons practising certain trades other than those in the class of recognized professions. The Federal statute relates only to engineers on steam vessels, masters, mates, pilots, &c. The occupations for which examinations and licences are required by the various state laws are those of barbers, horseshoers, elevator operators, plumbers, stationary firemen, steam engineers, telegraph operators on railroads and certain classes of mine workers and steam and street railway employés.

Labour organizations.

The right of combination and peaceable assembly on the part of employés is recognized at common law throughout the United States. Organizations of working-men formed for their mutual benefit, protection and improvement, such as for endeavouring to secure higher wages, shorter hours of labour or better working conditions, are nowhere regarded as unlawful. A number of states and the Federal government have enacted statutes providing for the incorporation of trade unions, but owing to the freedom from regulation or inspection enjoyed by unincorporated trade unions, very few have availed themselves of this privilege. A number of states have enacted laws tending to give special protection to and encourage trade unions. Thus, nearly one-half of the states have passed acts declaring it unlawful for employers to discharge workmen for joining labour organizations, or to make it a condition of employment that they shall not belong to such bodies. Laws of this kind have generally been held to be unconstitutional. Nearly all the states have laws protecting trade unions in the use of the union label, insignia of membership, credentials, &c., and making it a misdemeanour to counterfeit or fraudulently use them. A number of the states exempt labour organizations from the operations of the anti-trust and insurance acts.

Labour disputes.

Until recent years all legal action concerning labour disturbances was based upon the principles of the common law. Some of the states have now fairly complete statutory enactments concerning labour disturbances, while others have little or no legislation of this class. The right of employés to strike for any cause or for no cause is sustained by the common law everywhere in the United States. Likewise an employer has a right to discharge any or all of his employés when they have no contract with him, and he may refuse to employ any person or class of persons for any reason or for no reason. Agreements among strikers to take peaceable means to induce others to remain away from the works of an employer until he yields to the demands of the strikers are not held to be conspiracies under the common law, and the carrying out of such a purpose by peaceable persuasion and without violence, intimidation or threats, is not unlawful. However, any interference with the constitutional rights of another to employ whom he chooses or to labour when, where or on what terms he pleases, is illegal. The boycott has been held to be an illegal conspiracy in restraint of trade. The statutory enactments of the various states concerning labour disturbances are in part re-enactments of the rules of common law and in part more or less departures from or additions to the established principles. The list of such statutory enactments is a large one, and includes laws relating to blacklisting, boycotting, conspiracy against working-men, interference with employment, intimidation, picketing and strikes of railway employés; laws requiring statements of causes of discharge of employés and notice of strikes in advertisements for labour; laws prohibiting deception in the employment of labour and the hiring of armed guards by employers; and laws declaring that certain labour agreements do not constitute conspiracy. Some of these laws have been held to be unconstitutional, and some have not yet been tested in the courts.

Arbitration and conciliation.

The laws just treated relate almost entirely to acts either of employers or of employés, but there is another form of law, namely, that providing for action to be taken by others in the effort to prevent working people from losing employment, either by their own acts or by those of their employers, or to settle any differences which arise out of controversies relating to wages, hours of labour, terms and conditions of employment, rules, &c. These laws provide for the mediation and the arbitration of labour disputes (see ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION). Twenty-three states and the Federal government have laws or constitutional provisions of this nature. In some cases they provide for the appointment of state boards, and in others of local boards only. A number of states provide for local or special boards in addition to the regular state boards. In some states it is required that a member of a labour organization must be a member of the board, and, in general, both employers and employés must be represented. Nearly all state boards are required to attempt to mediate between the parties to a dispute when information is received of an actual or threatened labour trouble. Arbitration may be undertaken in some states on application from either party, in others on the application of both parties. An agreement to maintain the _status quo_ pending arbitration is usually required. The modes of enforcement of obedience to the awards of the boards are various. Some states depend on publicity alone, some give the decisions the effect of judgments of courts of law which may be enforced by execution, while in other states disobedience to such decisions is punishable as for contempt of court. The Federal statute applies only to common carriers engaged in interstate commerce, and provides for an attempt to be made at mediation by two designated government officials in controversies between common carriers and their employés, and, in case of the failure of such an attempt, for the formation of a board of arbitration consisting of the same officials together with certain other parties to be selected. Such arbitration boards are to be formed only at the request or upon the consent of both parties to the controversy.

The judicial enforcement of labour laws.

The enforcement of laws by executive or judicial action is an important matter relating to labour legislation, for without action such laws would remain dead letters. Under the constitutions of the states, the governor is the commander-in-chief of the military forces, and he has the power to order the militia or any part of it into active service in case of insurrection, invasion, tumult, riots or breaches of the peace or imminent danger thereof. Frequent action has been taken in the case of strikes with the view of preventing or suppressing violence threatened or happening to persons or property, the effect being, however, that the militia protects those working or desiring to work, or the employers. The president of the United States may use the land and naval forces whenever by reason of insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful obstructions, conspiracy, combinations or assemblages of persons it becomes impracticable to enforce the laws of the land by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or when the execution of the laws is so hindered by reason of such events that any portion or class of the people are deprived thereby of their rights and privileges under the constitution and laws of the country. Under this general power the United States forces have been used for the protection of both employers and employés indirectly, the purpose being to protect mails and, as in the states, to see that the laws are carried out.

The power of the courts to interfere in labour disputes is through the injunction and punishment thereunder for contempt of court. It is a principle of law that when there are interferences, actual or threatened, with property or with rights of a pecuniary nature, and the common or statute law offers no adequate and immediate remedy for the prevention of injury, a court of equity may interpose and issue its order or injunction as to what must or must not be done, a violation of which writ gives the court which issued it the power to punish for contempt. The doctrine is that something is necessary to be done to stop at once the destruction of property and the obstruction of business, and the injunction is immediate in its action. This writ has been resorted to frequently for the indirect protection of employés and of employers. (C. D. W.)

AUTHORITIES.--ENGLISH: (a) Factory Legislation: Abraham and Davies, _Law relating to Factories and Workshops_ (London, 1897 and 1902); Redgrave, _Factory Acts_ (London, 1897); Royal Commission on Labour, _Minutes of Evidence and Digests_, Group "C" (3 vols., 1892-1893), _Assistant Commissioner's Report on Employment of Women_ (1893), _Fifth and Final Report of the Commission_ (1894); International Labour Conference at Berlin, _Correspondence, Commercial Series_ (C, 6042) (1890); House of Lords Committee on the Sweating System, _Report_ (1891); _Home Office Reports_: Annual Reports of H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories (1879 to 1901), Committee on White Lead and Various Lead Industries (1894), Working of the Cotton Cloth Factories Acts (1897), Dangerous Trades (Anthrax) Committee, Do., Miscellaneous Trades (1896-97-98-99), Conditions of Work in Fish-Curing Trade (1898), Lead Compounds in Pottery (1899), Phosphorus in Manufacture of Lucifer Matches (1899), &c., &c.; Whately Cooke-Taylor, _Modern Factory System_ (London, 1891); Oliver, _Dangerous Trades_ (London, 1902); Cunningham, _Growth of English Commerce and Industry_ (1907); Hutchins and Harrison, _History of Factory Legislation_ (1903); Traill, _Social England, &c., &c._ (b) Mines and Quarries: _Statutes_: Coal Mines Regulation Acts 1886, 1894, 1896, 1899; Metalliferous Mines Regulation Acts 1872, 1875; Quarries Act 1894; Royal Commission on Labour, _Minutes of Evidence and Digests_, Group "A" (1892-1893, 3 vols.); Royal Commission on Mining Royalties, _Appendices_ (1894); _Home Office Reports_: Annual General Report upon the Mining Industry (1894-1897), Mines and Quarries, General Reports and Statistics (1898 to 1899), Annual Reports of H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories (1893-1895) (Quarries); Macswinney and Bristowe, _Coal Mines Regulation Act_ 1887 (London, 1888). (c) Shops: _Statutes_: Shop Hours Acts 1892, 1893, 1896, Seats for Shop Assistants Act 1899; _Report of Select Committee of House of Commons on the Shop Hours Regulation Bill 1886_ (Eyre and Spottiswoode). (d) Truck: _Home Office Reports_: Annual Reports of H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories, especially 1895-1900, Memorandum on the Law relating to Truck 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_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The term "labour" (Lat. _labor_) means strictly any energetic work, though in general it implies hard work, but in modern parlance it is specially confined to industrial work of the kind done by the "working-classes."

[2] H. D. Traill, _Social England_, v. 602 (1896).

[3] W. Cunningham, _Growth of English Commerce and Industry_.

[4] W. Cunningham, _Growth of English Commerce and Industry_.

[5] From an "Essay on Trade" (1770), quoted in _History of Factory Legislation_, by B. L. Hutchins and A. Harrison (1903), pp. 5, 6.

[6] Minutes of Evidence, House of Commons, 1876; quoted in _History of Factory Legislation_, by Harrison and Hutchinson, p. 179.

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 500 and 2000 ft. The interior is undulating, and traversed by ridges of low, rounded hills, seldom rising more than 500 ft. above the surrounding general level.

_Minerals._--The mineral wealth is undeveloped. Thick beds of excellent iron ore cover large areas in the interior and along the shores of Hudson and Ungava Bays. Large areas of mineralized Huronian rocks have also been discovered, similar to areas in other parts of Canada, where they contain valuable deposits of gold, copper, nickel and lead; good prospects of these metals have been found.

_Climate._--The climate ranges from cold temperate on the southern coasts to arctic on Hudson Strait, and is generally so rigorous that it is doubtful if the country is fit for agriculture north of 51°, except on the low grounds near the coast. On James Bay good crops of potatoes and other roots are grown at Fort George, 54° N., while about the head of Hamilton Inlet, on the east coast, and in nearly the same latitude, similar crops are easily cultivated. On the outer coasts the climate is more rigorous, being affected by the floating ice borne southwards on the Arctic current. In the interior at Mistassini, 50° 30´ N, a crop of potatoes is raised annually, but they rarely mature. No attempts at agriculture have been made elsewhere inland. Owing to the absence of grass plains, there is little likelihood that it will ever be a grazing district. There are only two seasons in the interior: winter begins early in October, with the freezing of the small lakes, and lasts until the middle of June, when the ice on rivers and lakes melts and summer suddenly bursts forth. From unconnected observations the lowest temperatures of the interior range from -50° F. to -60° F., and are slightly higher along the coast. The mean summer temperature of the interior is about 55° F., with frosts during every month in the northern portion. On the Atlantic coast and in Hudson Bay the larger bays freeze solid between the 1st and 15th of December, and these coasts remain ice-bound until late in June. Hudson Strait is usually sufficiently open for navigation about the 10th of July.

_Vegetation._--The southern half is included in the sub-Arctic forest belt, and nine species of trees constitute the whole arborescent flora of this region; these species are the white birch, poplar, aspen, cedar. Banksian pine, white and black spruce, balsam fir and larch. The forest is continuous over the southern portion to 53° N., the only exceptions being the summits of rocky hills and the outer islands of the Atlantic and Hudson Bay, while the low margins and river valleys contain much valuable timber. To the northward the size and number of barren areas rapidly increase, so that in 55° N. more than half the country is treeless, and two degrees farther north the limit of trees is reached, leaving, to the northward, only barrens covered with low Arctic flowering plants, sedges and lichens.

_Fisheries._--The fisheries along the shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence and of the Atlantic form practically the only industry of the white population scattered along the coasts, as well as of a large proportion of the inhabitants of Newfoundland. The census (1891) of Newfoundland gave 10,478 men, 2081 women and 828 children employed in the Labrador fishery in 861 vessels, of which the tonnage amounted to 33,689; the total catch being 488,788 quintals of cod, 1275 tierces of salmon and 3828 barrels of herring, which, compared with the customs returns for 1880, showed an increase of cod and decreases of salmon and herring. The salmon fishery along the Atlantic coast is now very small, the decrease being probably due to excessive use of cod-traps. The cod fishery is now carried on along the entire Atlantic coast and into the eastern part of Ungava Bay, where excellent catches have been made since 1893. The annual value of the fisheries on the Canadian portion of the coast is about $350,000. The fisheries of Hudson Bay and of the interior are wholly undeveloped, though both the bay and the large lakes of the interior are well stocked with several species of excellent fish, including Arctic trout, brook trout, lake trout, white fish, sturgeon and cod.

_Population._--The population is approximately 14,500, or about one person to every 35 sq. m.; it is made up of 3500 Indians, 2000 Eskimo and 9000 whites. The last are confined to the coasts and to the Hudson Bay Company's trading posts of the interior. On the Atlantic coast they are largely immigrants from Newfoundland, together with descendants of English fishermen and Hudson Bay Company's servants. To the north of Hamilton Inlet they are of more or less mixed blood from marriage with Eskimo women. The Newfoundland census of 1901 gave 3634 as the number of permanent white residents along the Atlantic coast, and the Canadian census (1891) gave a white population of 5728, mostly French Canadians, scattered along the north shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence, while the whites living at the inland posts did not exceed fifty persons. It is difficult to give more than a rough approximation of the number of the native population, owing to their habits of roving from one trading post to another, and the consequent liability of counting the same family several times if the returns are computed from the books of the various posts, the only available data for an enumeration. The following estimate is arrived at in this manner: Indians--west coast, 1200; Ungava Bay, 200; east coast, 200; south coast, 1900. Eskimo--Atlantic coast, 1000; south shore of Hudson Strait, 800; east coast of Hudson Bay, 500. The Indians roam over the southern interior in small bands, their northern limit being determined by that of the trees on which they depend for fuel. They live wholly by the chase, and their numbers are dependent upon the deer and other animals; as a consequence there is a constant struggle between the Indian and the lower animals for existence, with great slaughter of the latter, followed by periodic famines among the natives, which greatly reduce their numbers and maintain an equilibrium. The native population has thus remained about stationary for the last two centuries. The Indians belong to the Algonquin family, and speak dialects of the Cree language. By contact with missionaries and fur-traders they are more or less civilized, and the great majority of them are Christians. Those living north of the St Lawrence are Roman Catholic, while the Indians of the western watershed have been converted by the missionaries of the Church Mission Society; the eastern and northern bands have not yet been reached by the missionaries, and are still pagans. The Eskimo of the Atlantic coast have long been under the guidance of the Moravian missionaries, and are well advanced in civilization; those of Hudson Bay have been taught by the Church Mission Society, and promise well; while the Eskimo of Hudson Strait alone remain without teachers, and are pagans. The Eskimo live along the coasts, only going inland for short periods to hunt the barren-ground caribou for their winter clothing; the rest of the year they remain on the shore or the ice, hunting seals and porpoises, which afford them food, clothing and fuel. The christianized Indians and Eskimo read and write in their own language; those under the teaching of the Church Mission Society use a syllabic character, the others make use of the ordinary alphabet.

_Political Review._--The peninsula is divided politically between the governments of Canada, Newfoundland and the province of Quebec. The government of Newfoundland, under Letters Patent of the 28th of March 1876, exercises jurisdiction along the Atlantic coast; the boundary between its territory and that of Canada is a line running due north and south from Anse Sablon, on the north shore of the Strait of Belle Isle, to 52° N., the remainder of the boundary being as yet undetermined. The northern boundary of the province of Quebec follows the East Main river to its source in Patamisk lake, thence by a line due east to the Ashuanipi branch of the Hamilton river; it then follows that river and Hamilton Inlet to the coast area under the jurisdiction of Newfoundland. The remainder of the peninsula, north of the province of Quebec, by order in council dated the 18th of December 1897, was constituted Ungava District, an unorganized territory under the jurisdiction of the government of the Dominion of Canada.

AUTHORITIES.--W. T. Grenfell and others, _Labrador: the Country and the People_ (New York, 1909); R. F. Holmes, "A Journey in the Interior of Labrador," Proc. _R.G.S._ x. 189-205 (1887); A. S. Packard, _The Labrador Coast_ (New York, 1891); Austen Cary, "Exploration on Grand River, Labrador," _Bul. Am. Geo. Soc._ vol. xxiv., 1892; R. Bell, "The Labrador Peninsula," _Scottish Geo. Mag._ July 1895. Also the following reports by the Geological Survey of Canada:--R. Bell, "Report on an Exploration of the East Coast of Hudson Bay," 1877-1878; "Observations on the Coast of Labrador and on Hudson Strait and Bay," 1882-1884; A. P. Low, "Report on the Mistassini Expedition," 1885; "Report on James Bay and the Country East of Hudson Bay," 1887-1888; "Report on Explorations in the Labrador Peninsula, 1892-1895," 1896; "Report on a Traverse of the Northern Part of the Labrador Peninsula," 1898; "Report on the South Shore of Hudson Strait," 1899. For History: W. G. Gosling, _Labrador_ (1910). (A. P. Lo.; A. P. C.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] 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.

LABRADORITE, or LABRADOR SPAR, a lime-soda felspar of the plagioclase (q.v.) group, often cut and polished as an ornamental stone. It takes its name from the coast of Labrador, where it was discovered, as boulders, by the Moravian Mission about 1770, and specimens were soon afterwards sent to the secretary in London, the Rev. B. Latrobe. The felspar itself is generally of a dull grey colour, with a rather greasy lustre, but many specimens exhibit in certain directions a magnificent play of colours--blue, green, orange, purple or red; the colour in some specimens changing when the stone is viewed in different directions. This optical effect, known sometimes as "labradorescence," seems due in some cases to the presence of minute laminae of certain minerals, like göthite or haematite, arranged parallel to the surface which reflects the colour; but in other cases it may be caused not so much by inclusions as by a delicate lamellar structure in the felspar. An aventurine effect is produced by the presence of microscopic enclosures. The original labradorite was found in the neighbourhood of Nain, notably in a lagoon about 50 m. inland, and in St Paul's Island. Here it occurs with hypersthene, of a rich bronzy sheen, forming a coarse-grained norite. When wet, the stones are remarkably brilliant, and have been called by the natives "fire rocks." Russia has also yielded chatoyant labradorite, especially near Kiev and in Finland; a fine blue labradorite has been brought from Queensland; and the mineral is also known in several localities in the United States, as at Keeseville, in Essex county, New York. The ornamental stone from south Norway, now largely used as a decorative material in architecture, owes its beauty to a felspar with a blue opalescence, often called labradorite, but really a kind of orthoclase which Professor W. C. Brögger has termed cryptoperthite, whilst the rock in which it occurs is an augite-syenite called by him laurvigite, from its chief locality, Laurvik in Norway. Common labradorite, without play of colour, is an important constituent of such rocks as gabbro, diorite, andesite, dolerite and basalt. (See PLAGIOCLASE.) Ejected crystals of labradorite are found on Monti Rossi, a double parasitic cone on Etna.

The term labradorite is unfortunately used also as a rock-name, having been applied by Fouqué and Lévy to a group of basic rocks rich in augite and poor in olivine. (F. W. R.*)

LABRADOR TEA, the popular name for a species of _Ledum_, a small evergreen shrub growing in bogs and swamps in Greenland and the more northern parts of North America. The leaves are tough, densely covered with brown wool on the under face, fragrant when crushed and have been used as a substitute for tea. The plant is a member of the heath family (Ericaceae).

LABRUM (Lat. for "lip"), the large vessel of the warm bath in the Roman thermae. These were cut out of great blocks of marble and granite, and have generally an overhanging lip. There is one in the Vatican of porphyry over 12 ft. in diameter. The term _labrum_ is used in zoology, of a lip or lip-like part; in entomology it is applied specifically to the upper lip of an insect, the lower lip being termed _labium_.

LA BRUYÈRE, JEAN DE (1643-1696), French essayist and moralist, was born in Paris on the 16th of August 1645, and not as was once the common statement, at Dourdan (Seine-et-Oise) in 1639. His family was of the middle class, and his reference to a certain Geoffroy de la Bruyère, a crusader, is only a satirical illustration of a method of self-ennoblement common in France as in some other countries. Indeed he himself always signed the name Delabruyère in one word, thus avowing his _roture_. His progenitors, however, were of respectable position, and he could trace them back at least as far as his great-grandfather, who had been a strong Leaguer. La Bruyère's own father was controller-general of finance to the Hôtel de Ville. The son was educated by the Oratorians and at the university of Orleans; he was called to the bar, and in 1673 bought a post in the revenue department at Caen, which gave the status of noblesse and a certain income. In 1687 he sold this office. His predecessor in it was a relation of Bossuet, and it is thought that the transaction was the cause of La Bruyère's introduction to the great orator. Bossuet, who from the date of his own preceptorship of the dauphin, was a kind of agent-general for tutorships in the royal family, introduced him in 1684 to the household of the great Condé, to whose grandson Henri Jules de Bourbon as well as to that prince's girl-bride Mlle de Nantes, one of Louis XIV.'s natural children, La Bruyère became tutor. The rest of his life was passed in the household of the prince or else at court, and he seems to have profited by the inclination which all the Condé family had for the society of men of letters. Very little is known of the events of this part--or, indeed, of any part--of his life. The impression derived from the few notices of him is of a silent, observant, but somewhat awkward man, resembling in manners Joseph Addison, whose master in literature La Bruyère undoubtedly was. Yet despite the numerous enemies which his book raised up for him, most of these notices are favourable--notably that of Saint-Simon, an acute judge and one bitterly prejudiced against _roturiers_ generally. There is, however, a curious passage in a letter from Boileau to Racine in which he regrets that "nature has not made La Bruyère as agreeable as he would like to be." His _Caractères_ appeared in 1688, and at once, as Nicolas de Malezieu had predicted, brought him "bien des lecteurs et bien des ennemis." At the head of these were Thomas Corneille, Fontenelle and Benserade, who were pretty clearly aimed at in the book, as well as innumerable other persons, men and women of letters as well as of society, on whom the cap of La Bruyère's fancy-portraits was fitted by manuscript "keys" compiled by the scribblers of the day. The friendship of Bossuet and still more the protection of the Condés sufficiently defended the author, and he continued to insert fresh portraits of his contemporaries in each new edition of his book, especially in the 4th (1689). Those, however, whom he had attacked were powerful in the Academy, and numerous defeats awaited La Bruyère before he could make his way into that guarded hold. He was defeated thrice in 1691, and on one memorable occasion he had but seven votes, five of which were those of Bossuet, Boileau, Racine, Pellisson and Bussy-Rabutin. It was not till 1693 that he was elected, and even then an epigram, which, considering his admitted insignificance in conversation, was not of the worst, _haesit lateri_:--

"Quand la Bruyère se présente Pourquoi faut il crier haro? Pour faire un nombre de quarante Ne falloit il pas un zéro?"

His unpopularity was, however, chiefly confined to the subjects of his sarcastic portraiture, and to the hack writers of the time, of whom he was wont to speak with a disdain only surpassed by that of Pope. His description of the _Mercure galant_ as "_immédiatement au dessous de rien_" is the best-remembered specimen of these unwise attacks; and would of itself account for the enmity of the editors, Fontenelle and the younger Corneille. La Bruyère's discourse of admission at the Academy, one of the best of its kind, was, like his admission itself, severely criticized, especially by the partisans of the "Moderns" in the "Ancient and Modern" quarrel. With the _Caractères_, the translation of Theophrastus, and a few letters, most of them addressed to the prince de Condé, it completes the list of his literary work, with the exception of a curious and much-disputed posthumous treatise. La Bruyère died very suddenly, and not long after his admission to the Academy. He is said to have been struck with dumbness in an assembly of his friends, and, being carried home to the Hôtel de Condé, to have expired of apoplexy a day or two afterwards, on the 10th of May 1696. It is not surprising that, considering the recent panic about poisoning, the bitter personal enmities which he had excited and the peculiar circumstances of his death, suspicions of foul play should have been entertained, but there was apparently no foundation for them. Two years after his death appeared certain _Dialogues sur le Quiétisme_, alleged to have been found among his papers incomplete, and to have been completed by the editor. As these dialogues are far inferior in literary merit to La Bruyère's other works, their genuineness has been denied. But the straightforward and circumstantial account of their appearance given by this editor, the Abbé du Pin, a man of acknowledged probity, the intimacy of La Bruyère with Bossuet, whose views in his contest with Fénelon these dialogues are designed to further, and the entire absence, at so short a time after the alleged author's death, of the least protest on the part of his friends and representatives, seem to be decisive in their favour.

Although it is permissible to doubt whether the value of the _Caractères_ has not been somewhat exaggerated by traditional French criticism, they deserve beyond all question a high place. The plan of the book is thoroughly original, if that term may be accorded to a novel and skilful combination of existing elements. The treatise of Theophrastus may have furnished the first idea, but it gave little more. With the ethical generalizations and social Dutch painting of his original La Bruyère combined the peculiarities of the Montaigne essay, of the _Pensées_ and _Maximes_ of which Pascal and La Rochefoucauld are the masters respectively, and lastly of that peculiar 17th-century product, the "portrait" or elaborate literary picture of the personal and mental characteristics of an individual. The result was quite unlike anything that had been before seen, and it has not been exactly reproduced since, though the essay of Addison and Steele resembles it very closely, especially in the introduction of fancy portraits. In the titles of his work, and in its extreme desultoriness, La Bruyère reminds the reader of Montaigne, but he aimed too much at sententiousness to attempt even the apparent continuity of the great essayist. The short paragraphs of which his chapters consist are made up of maxims proper, of criticisms literary and ethical, and above all of the celebrated sketches of individuals baptized with names taken from the plays and romances of the time. These last are the great feature of the work, and that which gave it its immediate if not its enduring popularity. They are wonderfully piquant, extraordinarily life-like in a certain sense, and must have given great pleasure or more frequently exquisite pain to the originals, who were in many cases unmistakable and in most recognizable.

But there is something wanting in them. The criticism of Charpentier, who received La Bruyère at the Academy, and who was of the opposite faction, is in fact fully justified as far as it goes. La Bruyère literally "est [trop] descendu dans le particulier." He has neither, like Molière, embodied abstract peculiarities in a single life-like type, nor has he, like Shakespeare, made the individual pass _sub speciem aeternitatis_, and serve as a type while retaining his individuality. He is a photographer rather than an artist in his portraiture. So, too, his maxims, admirably as they are expressed, and exact as their truth often is, are on a lower level than those of La Rochefoucauld. Beside the sculpturesque precision, the Roman brevity, the profoundness of ethical intuition "piercing to the accepted hells beneath," of the great Frondeur, La Bruyère has the air of a literary _petit-maître_ dressing up superficial observation in the finery of _esprit_. It is indeed only by comparison that he loses, but then it is by comparison that he is usually praised. His abundant wit and his personal "malice" have done much to give him his rank in French literature, but much must also be allowed to his purely literary merits. With Racine and Massillon he is probably the very best writer of what is somewhat arbitrarily styled classical French. He is hardly ever incorrect--the highest merit in the eyes of a French academic critic. He is always well-bred, never obscure, rarely though sometimes "precious" in the turns and niceties of language in which he delights to indulge, in his avowed design of attracting readers by form, now that, in point of matter, "tout est dit." It ought to be added to his credit that he was sensible of the folly of impoverishing French by ejecting old words. His chapter on "Les ouvrages de l'esprit" contains much good criticism, though it shows that, like most of his contemporaries except Fénelon, he was lamentably ignorant of the literature of his own tongue.

The editions of La Bruyère, both partial and complete, have been extremely numerous. _Les Caractères de Théophraste traduits du Grec, avec les caractères et les moeurs de ce siècle_, appeared for the first time in 1688, being published by Michallet, to whose little daughter, according to tradition, La Bruyère gave the profits of the book as a dowry. Two other editions, little altered, were published in the same year. In the following year, and in each year until 1694, with the exception of 1693, a fresh edition appeared, and, in all these five, additions, omissions and alterations were largely made. A ninth edition, not much altered, was put forth in the year of the author's death. The Academy speech appeared in the eighth edition. The Quietist dialogues were published in 1699; most of the letters, including those addressed to Condé, not till 1867. In recent times numerous editions of the complete works have appeared, notably those of Walckenaer (1845), Servois (1867, in the series of _Grands écrivains de la France_), Asselineau (a scholarly reprint of the last original edition, 1872) and finally Chassang (1876); the last is one of the most generally useful, as the editor has collected almost everything of value in his predecessors. The literature of "keys" to La Bruyère is extensive and apocryphal. Almost everything that can be done in this direction and in that of general illustration was done by Edouard Fournier in his learned and amusing _Comédie de La Bruyère_ (1866); M. Paul Morillot contributed a monograph on La Bruyère to the series of _Grands écrivains français_ in 1904. (G. Sa.)

LABUAN (a corruption of the Malay word _labuh-an_, signifying an "anchorage"), an island of the Malay Archipelago, off the north-west coast of Borneo in 5° 16´ N., 115° 15´ E. Its area is 30.23 sq. m.; it is distant about 6 m. from the mainland of Borneo at the nearest point, and lies opposite to the northern end of the great Brunei Bay. The island is covered with low hills rising from flats near the shore to an irregular plateau near the centre. About 1500 acres are under rice cultivation, and there are scattered patches of coco-nut and sago palms and a few vegetable gardens, the latter owned for the most part by Chinese. For the rest Labuan is covered over most of its extent by vigorous secondary growth, amidst which the charred trunks of trees rise at frequent intervals, the greater part of the forest of the island having been destroyed by great accidental conflagrations. Labuan was ceded to Great Britain in 1846, chiefly through the instrumentality of Sir James Brooke, the first raja of Sarawak, and was occupied two years later.

At the time of its cession the island was uninhabited, but in 1881 the population numbered 5731, though it had declined to 5361 in 1891. The census returns for 1901 give the population at 8411. The native population consists of Malay fishermen, Chinese, Tamils and small shifting communities of Kadayans, Tutongs and other natives of the neighbouring Bornean coast. There are about fifty European residents. At the time of its occupation by Great Britain a brilliant future was predicted for Labuan, which it was thought would become a second Singapore. These hopes have not been realized. The coal deposits, which are of somewhat indifferent quality, have been worked with varying degrees of failure by a succession of companies, one of which, the Labuan & Borneo Ltd., liquidated in 1902 after the collapse of a shaft upon which large sums had been expended. It was succeeded by the Labuan Coalfields Ltd. The harbour is a fine one, and the above-named company possesses three wharves capable of berthing the largest Eastern-going ocean steamers. To-day Labuan chiefly exists as a trading depôt for the natives of the neighbouring coast of Borneo, who sell their produce--beeswax, edible birds-nests, camphor, gutta, trepang, &c.,--to Chinese shopkeepers, who resell it in Singapore. There is also a considerable trade in sago, much of which is produced on the mainland, and there are three small sago-factories on the island where the raw product is converted into flour. The Eastern Extension Telegraph Company has a central station at Labuan with cables to Singapore, Hong-Kong and British North Borneo. Monthly steam communication is maintained by a German firm between Labuan, Singapore and the Philippines. The colony joined the Imperial Penny Postage Union in 1889. There are a few miles of road on the island and a metre-gauge railway from the harbour to the coal mines, the property of the company. There is a Roman Catholic church with a resident priest, an Anglican church, visited periodically by a clergyman from the mainland, two native and Chinese schools, and a sailors' club, built by the Roman Catholic mission. The bishop of Singapore and Sarawak is also bishop of Labuan. The European graveyard has repeatedly been the scene of outrages perpetrated, it is believed, by natives from the mainland of Borneo, the graves being rifled and the hair of the head and other parts of the corpses being carried off to furnish ornaments to weapons and ingredients in the magic philtres of the natives. Pulau Dat, a small island in the near neighbourhood of Labuan, is the site of a fine coco-nut plantation whence nuts and copra are exported in bulk. The climate is hot and very humid.

Until 1869 the expenditure of the colony was partly defrayed by imperial grants-in-aid, but after that date it was left to its own resources. A garrison of imperial troops was maintained until 1871, when the troops were withdrawn after many deaths from fever and dysentery had occurred among them. Since then law and order have been maintained without difficulty by a small mixed police force of Punjabis and Malays. From the 1st of January 1890 to the 1st of January 1906 Labuan was transferred for administrative purposes to the British North Borneo Company, the governor for the time being of the company's territories holding also the royal commission as governor of Labuan. This arrangement did not work satisfactorily and called forth frequent petitions and protests from the colonists. Labuan was then placed under the government of the Straits Settlements, and is administered by a deputy governor who is a member of the Straits Civil Service.

LABURNUM, known botanically as _Laburnum vulgare_ (or _Cytisus Laburnum_), a familiar tree of the pea family (Leguminosae); it is also known as "golden chain" and "golden rain." It is a native of the mountains of France, Switzerland, southern Germany, northern Italy, &c., has long been cultivated as an ornamental tree throughout Europe, and was introduced into north-east America by the European colonists. Gerard records it as growing in his garden in 1597 under the names of anagyris, laburnum or beane trefoyle (_Herball_, p. 1239), but the date of its introduction into England appears to be unknown. In France it is called _l'aubour_--a corruption from laburnum according to Du Hamel--as also _arbois_, i.e. _arc-bois_, "the wood having been used by the ancient Gauls for bows. It is still so employed in some parts of the Mâconnois, where the bows are found to preserve their strength and elasticity for half a century" (Loudon, _Arboretum_, ii. 590).

Several varieties of this tree are cultivated, differing in the size of the flowers, in the form of the foliage, &c., such as the "oak-leafed" (_quercifolium_), _pendulum_, _crispum_, &c.; var. _aureum_ has golden yellow leaves. One of the most remarkable forms is _Cytisus Adami (C. purpurascens)_, which bears three kinds of blossoms, viz. racemes of pure yellow flowers, others of a purple colour and others of an intermediate brick-red tint. The last are hybrid blossoms, and are sterile, with malformed ovules, though the pollen appears to be good. The yellow and purple "reversions" are fertile. It originated in Paris in 1828 by M. Adam, who inserted a "shield" of the bark of Cytisus purpureus into a stock of Laburnum. A vigorous shoot from this bud was subsequently propagated. Hence it would appear that the two distinct species became united by their cambium layers, and the trees propagated therefrom subsequently reverted to their respective parentages in bearing both yellow and purple flowers, but produce as well blossoms of an intermediate or hybrid character. Such a result may be called a "graft-hybrid." For full details see Darwin's _Animals and Plants under Domestication_.

The laburnum has highly poisonous properties. The roots taste like liquorice, which is a member of the same family as the laburnum. It has proved fatal to cattle, though hares and rabbits eat the bark of it with avidity (_Gardener's Chronicle_, 1881, vol. xvi. p. 666). The seeds also are highly poisonous, possessing emetic as well as acrid narcotic principles, especially in a green state. Gerard (loc. cit.) alludes to the powerful effect produced on the system by taking the bruised leaves medicinally. Pliny states that bees will not visit the flowers (_N.H._