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inspectoral powers, organizing the service on lines resembling | are still in force, with certain revised special rules and modifica. those of our own time, and added provision for certifying tions as regards reporting of accidents (1906) and employment surgeons to examine workers under sixteen years of age as to of children (1903). It was based on the recommendations of a physical fitness for employment and to grant certificates of age Royal Commission, which had reported in 1864, and which had and ordinary strength. Hours of labour, by the act of 1833, shown the grave excess of mortality and sickness among metalwere limited for children under eleven to 9 a day or 48 in the liferous miners, attributed to the inhalation of gritty particles, week, and for young persons under eighteen to 12 a day or 69 imperfect ventilation, great changes of temperature, excessive in the week. Between 1833 and 1844 the movement in favour physical exertion, exposure to wet, and other causes. The proof a ten hours' day, which had long been in progress, reached hibition of employment of women and of boys under ten years its height in a time of great commercial and industrial distress, underground in this class of mines, as well as in coal mines, but could not be carried into effect until 1847. By the act of had been effected by the act of 1842, and inspection had been 1844 the hours of adult women were first regulated, and were provided for in the act of 1860; these were in amended form limited (as were already those of "young persons") to 12 a day; included in the code of 1872, the age of employment of boys children were permitted either to work the same hours on alter- underground being raised to twelve. In the Coal Mines Act nate days or "half-time," with compulsory school attendance of 1872 we see the first important effort to provide a complete as a condition of their employment. The aim in thus adjusting code of regulation for the special dangers to health, life and the hours of the three classes of workers was to provide for a limb in coal mines apart from other mines; it applied to practical standard working-day. For the first time detailed "mines of coal, mines of stratified ironstone, mines of shale and provisions for health and safety began to make their appearance mines of fire-clay." Unlike the companion act-applying to in the law. Penal compensation for preventible injuries due to all other mines-it maintained the age limit of entering underunfenced machinery was also provided, and appears to have ground employment for boys at ten years, but for those between been the outcome of a discussion by witnesses before the Royal ten and twelve it provided for a system of working analogous Commission on Labour of Young Persons in Mines and Manu- to the half-time system in factories, including compulsory school factures in 1841. attendance. The limits of employment for boys from twelve to sixteen were 10 hours in any one day and 54 in any one week. The chief characteristics of the act lay in extension of the "general" safety rules, improvement of the method of formulating "special" safety rules, provision for certificated and competent management, and increased inspection. Several important matters were transferred from the special to the general rules, such as compulsory use of safety lamps where needed, regulation of use of explosives, and securing of roofs and sides. Special rules, before being submitted to the secretary of state for approval, must be posted in the mine for two weeks, with a notice that objections might be sent by any person employed to the district inspector. Wilful neglect of safety provisions became punishable in the case of employers as well as miners by imprisonment with hard labour. But the most important new step lay in the sections relating to daily control and super. vision of every mine by a manager holding a certificate of competency from the secretary of state, after examination by a board of examiners appointed by the secretary of state, power being retained for him to cause later inquiry into competency of the holder of the certificate, and to cancel or suspend the certificate in case of proved unfitness.

From this date, 1841, begin the first attempts at protective legislation for labour in mining. The first Mines Act of 1842 following the terrible revelations of the Royal Commission referred to excluded women and girls from underground working, and limited the employment of boys, excluding from underground working those under ten years, but it was not until 1850 that systematic reporting of fatal accidents and until 1855 that other safeguards for health, life and limb in mines were seriously provided by law. With the exception of regulations against truck there was no protection for the miner before 1842; before 1814 it was not customary to hold inquests on miners killed by accidents in mines. From 1842 onwards considerable interaction in the development of the two sets of acts (mines and factories), as regards special protection against industrial injury to health and limb, took place, both in parliament and in the department (Home Office) administering them. Another strong influence tending towards ultimate development of scientific protection of health and life in industry began in the work and reports of the series of sanitary commissions and Doard of Health reports from 1843 onwards. In 1844 the mines inspector made his first report, but two years later women were still employed to some extent underground. Organized inspection began in 1850, and in 1854 the Select Committee on Accidents adopted a suggestion of the inspectors for legislative extension of the practice of several colliery owners in framing special safety rules for working in mines. The act of 1855 provided seven general rules, relating to ventilation, fencing of disused shafts, proper means for signalling, proper gauges and valve for steam-boiler, indicator and brake for machine lowering and raising; also it provided that detailed special rules submitted by mine-owners to the secretary of state, might, on his approval, have the force of law and be enforceable by penalty. The Mines Act of 1860, besides extending the law to ironstone mines, following as it did on a series of disastrous accidents and explosions, strengthened some of the provisions for safety. At several inquests strong evidence was given of incompetent management and neglect of rules, and a demand was made for enforcing employment only of certificated managers of coal mines. This was not met until the act of 1872, but in 1860 certain sections relating to wages and education were introduced. Steady development of the coal industry, increasing association among miners, and increased scientific knowledge of means of ventilation and of other methods for securing safety, all paved the way to the Coal Mines Act of 1872, and in the same year health and safety in metalliferous mines received their first legislative treatment in a code of similar scope and character to that of the Coal Mines Act. This act was amended in 1886, and repealed and recodified in 1887; its principal provisions

Returning to the development of factory and workshop law from the year 1844, the main line of effort- after the act of 1847 had restricted hours of women and young persons to 10 a day and fixed the daily limits between 6 A.M. and 6 P.M. (Saturday 6 A.M. to 2 P.M.)-lay in bringing trade after trade in some degree under the scope of this branch of law, which had hitherto only regulated conditions in textile factories. Bleaching and dyeing works were included by the acts of 1860 and 1862; lace factories by that of 1861; calendering and finishing by acts of 1863 and 1864; bakehouses became partially regulated by an act of 1863, with special reference to local authorities for administration of its clauses. The report of the third Children's Employment Commission brought together in accessible form the miserable facts relating to child labour in a number of unregulated industries in the year 1862, and the act of 1864 brought some of (these earthenware-making, lucifer match-making, percussion cap and cartridge making, paper-staining, and fustian cutting) partly under the scope of the various textile factory acts in force. A larger addition of trades was made three years later, but the act of 1864 is particularly interesting in that it first embodied some of the results of inquiries of expert medical and sanitary commissioners, by requiring ventilation to be applied to the removal of injurious gases, dust, and other im purities generated in manufacture, and made a first attempt to engraft part of the special rules system from the mines acts, The provisions for framing such rules disappeared in the Consolidating Act of 1878, to be revived in a better form later.

II. LAW OF UNITED KINGDOM, 1910

The Sanitary Act of 1866, administered by local authorities, to compute the total amount of wages payable to them; (e)
provided for general sanitation in any factories and workshops extension of the act to laundries; (f) a tentative effort to limit
not under existing factory acts, and the Workshops Regulation the too early employment of mothers after childbirth.
Act of 1867, similarly to be administered by local authorities,
amended in 1870, practically completed the application of the
main principle of the factory acts to all places in which manual
labour was exercised for gain in the making or finishing of
articles or parts of articles for sale. A few specially dangerous
or injurious trades brought under regulation in 1864 and 1867
(e.g. earthenware and lucifer match making, glass-making)
ranked as "factories," although not using mechanical power,
and for a time employment of less than fifty persons relegated
certain work-places to the category of "workshops," but broadly
the presence or absence of such motor power in aid of process
was made and has remained the distinction between factories
and workshops. The Factory Act of 1874, the last of the series
before the great Consolidating Act of 1878, raised the minimum
age of employment for children to ten years in textile factories.
In most of the great inquiries into conditions of child labour
the fact has come clearly to light, in regard to textile and non-
textile trades alike, that parents as much as any employers
have been responsible for too early employment and excessive
hours of employment of children, and from early times until
to-day in factory legislation it has been recognized that they
must to some extent be held responsible for due observation of
the limits imposed. For example, in 1831 it was found necessary
to protect occupiers against parental responsibility for false
certificates of age, and in 1833 parents of a child or any Person
having any benefit from the wages of such child" were made
to share responsibility for employment of children without school
attendance or beyond legal hours.

Factories and Workshops.-The act of 1878 remained until
1901, although much had been meanwhile superimposed, a
monument to the efforts of the great factory reformers of the
first half of the 19th century, and the general groundwork of
safety for workers in factories and workshops in the main
divisions of sanitation, security against accidents, physical
fitness of workers, general limitation of hours and times of employ-
ment for young workers and women. The act of 1901, which
came into force 1st January 1902 (and became the principal
act), was an amending as well as a consolidating act. Comparison
of the two acts shows, however, that, in spite of the advantages
of further consolidation and helpful changes in arrangement of
sections and important additions which tend towards a specialized
hygiene for factory life, the fundamental features of the law
as fought out in the 19th century remain undisturbed. So far
as the law has altered in character, it has done so chiefly by
gradual development of certain sanitary features, originally
subordinate, and by strengthening provision for security against
accidents and not by retreat, from its earlier aims. At the same
time a basis for possible new developments can be seen in the
protection of "outworkers " as well as factory workers against
fraudulent or defective particulars of piece-work rates of wages.

"6

Later acts directly and indirectly affecting the law are certain acts of 1903, 1906, 1907, to be touched on presently.

The act of 1878, in a series of acts from 1883 to 1895, received
striking additions, based (1) on the experience gained in other
branches of protective legislation, e.g. development
of the method of regulation of dangerous trades by Additions
"special rules" and administrative inquiry into 1878.
accidents under Coal Mines Acts; (2) on the findings
of royal commissions and parliamentary inquiries, e.g. increased
control of "outwork " and domestic workshops, and limitation
of "overtime "; (3) on the development of administrative
machinery for enforcing the more modern law relating to public
health, e.g. transference of administration of sanitary provisions
in workshops to the local sanitary authorities; (4) on the trade-
union demand for means for securing trustworthy records of
wage-contracts between employer and workman, e.g. the section
requiring particulars of work and wages for piece-workers. The
first additions to the act of 1878 were, however, almost purely
attempts to deal more adequately than had been attempted
in the code of 1878 with certain striking instances of trades
injurious to health. Thus the Factory and Workshop Act of
1883 provided that white-lead factories should not be carried
on without a certificate of conformity with certain conditions,
and also made provision for special rules, on lines later superseded
by those laid down in the act of 1891, applicable to any employ.
ment in a factory or workshop certified as dangerous or injurious
by the secretary of state. The act of 1883 also dealt with sanitary
conditions in bakehouses. Certain definitions and explanations
of previous enactments touching overtime and employment
of a child in any factory or workshop were also included in the
act. A class of factories in which excessive heat and humidity
seriously affected the health of operatives was next dealt with
in the Cotton Cloth Factories 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 tempera
ture of workrooms and amount of moisture in the atmosphere,
and provided for tests and records of the same; and fixed
standard minimum volume of fresh air (600 cub. ft.) to be ad-
1878mitted 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 atmo
sphere at any given temperature. A short act in 1870 extended
this power to other, measures for the protection of health.

During the discussions on the bill which became law in 1874, it had become apparent that revision and consolidation of the multiplicity of statutes then regulating manufacturing industry had become pressingly necessary; modifications and exceptions for exceptional conditions in separate industries needed reconsideration and systematization on clear principles, and the main requirements of the law could with great advantage be applied more generally to all the industries. In particular, the daily limits as to period of employment, pauses for meals, and holidays, needed to be unified for non-textile factories and workshops, so as to bring about a standard working-day, and thus prevent the tendency in "the larger establishments to farm out work among the smaller, where it is done under less favourable conditions both sanitary and educational." In these main directions, and that of simplifying definitions, summarizing special sanitary provisions that had been gradually introduced for various trades, and centralizing and improving the organization of the inspectorate, the Commission of 1876 on the Factory Acts made its recommendations, and the Factory Act of 1878 took effect. In the fixed working-day, provisions for pauses, holidays, general and special exceptions, distinctions between systems of employment for children, young persons and women, education of children and certificates of fitness for children and young persons, limited regulation of domestic workshops, general principles of administration and definitions, the law of 1878 was made practically the same as that embodied in the later principal act of 1901. More or less completely revised are: (a) the sections in the 1878 act relating to mode of controlling sanitary conditions in workshops (since 1891 primarily enforced by the local sanitary authority); (b) provision for reporting accidents and for enforcing safety (other than fencing of mill gearing and dangerous machinery); (c) detailed regulation of injurious and dangerous process and trades; (d) powers of certifying surgeons; (e) amount of overtime permissible (greatly reduced in amount and now confined to adults); () age for permissible employment of a child has been raised from ten years to twelve years. Entirely new since the act of are the provisions: (a) for control of outwork; (b) for supplying particulars of work and wages to piece-workers, enabling them Minutes of Evidence, House of Commons, 1876; quoted in History of Factory Legislation, by Harrison and Hutchinson, p. 179.

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The special measures from 1878 to 1889 gave valuable pre- on an employer wilfully allowing wearing apparel to be made, cedents for further developments of special hygiene in factory cleaned or repaired in a dwelling-house where an inmate is life, but the next advance in the Factory and Workshop Act suffering from infectious disease Another provision empowered 1891, following the House of Lords Committee on the sweating the secretary of state to specify classes of outwork and areas system and the Berlin International Labour Conference, extended with a view to the regulation of the sanitary condition of premises over much wider ground. Its principal objects were (a) to in which outworkers are employed. Owing to the conditions render administration of the law relating to workshops more attached to its exercise, no case was found in which this power efficient, particularly as regards sanitation; with this end in could come into operation, and the act of 1901 deals with the view it made the primary controlling authority for sanitary matter on new lines. The requirement of annual returns from matters in workshops the local sanitary authority (now the occupiers of persons employed, and the competency of the person district council), acting by their officers, and giving them the charged with infringing the act to give evidence in his defence, powers of the less numerous body of factory inspectors, while at were important new provisions, as was also the adoption of the the same time the provisions of the Public Health Acts replaced powers to direct a formal investigation of any accident on the in workshops the very similar sanitary provisions of the Factory lines laid down in section 45 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act Acts; (b) to provide for greater security against accidents and 1887 Other sections, relating to sanitation and safety, were more efficient fencing of machinery in factories, (c) to extend developments of previous regulations, e g. the fixing of a standard the method of regulation of unhealthy or dangerous occupations of overcrowding, provision of sanitary accommodation separate by application of special rules and requirements to any incident for each sex where the standard of the Public Health Act Amendof employment (other than in a domestic workshop) certified ment Act of 1890 had not been adopted by the competent local by the secretary of state to be dangerous or injurious to health sanitary authority, power to order a fan or other mechanical or dangerous to life or limb, (d) to raise the age of employment means to carry off injurious gas, vapour or other impurity of children and restrict the employment of women immediately (the previous power covering only dust). The fencing of after childbirth; (e) to require particulars of rate of wages to machinery and definition of accidents were made more precise, be given with work to piece-workers in certain branches of the young persons were prohibited from cleaning dangerous textile industries; (f) to amend the act of 1878 in various machinery, and additional safeguards against risk of injury by subsidiary ways, with the view of improving the administration fire or panic were introduced. On the question of employment of its principles, e.g. by increasing the means of checking the the foremost amendments lay in the almost complete prohibition amount of overtime worked, empowering inspectors to enter of overtime for young persons, and the restriction of the power work-places used as dwellings without a justice's warrant, and of an employer to employ protected persons outside his factory the imposition of minimum penalties in certain cases. On this or workshop on the same day that he had employed them in act followed four years of greatly accelerated administrative the factory or workshop. Under the head of particulars of work activity. No fewer than sixteen trades were scheduled by the and wages to piece-workers an important new power, highly secretary of state as dangerous to health. The manner of pre-valued by the workers, was given to apply the principle with paring and establishing suitable rules was greatly modified by the necessary modifications by order of the secretary of state the act of 1901 and will be dealt with in that connexion. to industries other than textile and to outworkers as well as to those employed inside factories and workshops.

The Factory and Workshop Act 1895 followed thus on a period of exercise of new powers of administrative regulation In 1899 an indirect modification of the limitation to employ(the period being also that during which the Royal Commission ment of children was effected by the Elementary Education on Labour made its wide survey of industrial conditions), and Amendment Act, which, by raising from eleven to The act of after two successive annual reports of the chief inspector of twelve the minimum age at which a child may, by 1901. factories had embodied reports and recommendations from the the by-laws of a local authority, obtain total or women inspectors, who in 1893 were first added to the inspector- partial exemption from the obligation to attend school, made it ate. Again, the chief features of an even wider legislative effort unlawful for an occupier to take into employment any child than that of 1891 were the increased stringency and definiteness under twelve in such a manner as to prevent full-time attendance of the measures for securing hygienic and safe conditions of work. at school. The age of employment became generally thereby Some of these measures, however, involved new principles, as the same as it has been for employment at a mine above ground in the provision for the prohibition of the use of a dangerous since 1887. The act of 1901 made the prohibition of employmachine or structure by the order of a magistrate's court, and ment of a child under twelve in a factory or workshop direct the power to include in the special rules drawn up in pursuance and absolute. Under the divisions of sanitation, safety, fitness of section 8 of the act of 1891, the prohibition of the employment for employment, special regulation of dangerous trades, special of any class of persons, or the limitation of the period of employ-control of bakehouses, exceptional treatment of creamerics, new ment of any class of persons in any process scheduled by order methods of dealing with home work and outworkers, important of the secretary of state. These last two powers have both been additions were made to the general law by the act of 1901, as exercised, and with the exercise of the latter passed away, also in regulations for strengthened administrative control. without opposition, the absolute freedom of the employer of New general sanitary provisions were those prescribing: (a) the adult male labourer to carry on his manufacture without ventilation per se for every workroom, and empowering the legislative limitation of the hours of labour. Second only in secretary of state to fix a standard of sufficient ventilation; significance to these new developments was the addition, for (b) drainage of wet floors; (c) the power of the secretary of the first time since 1867, of new classes of workplaces not state to define in certain cases what shall constitute sufficient covered by the general definitions in section 93 of the Con- and suitable sanitary accommodation. New safety provisions solidating Act of 1878, viz. : (a) laundries (with special conditions were those relating to (a) Examination and report on steam as to hours, &c.); (b) docks, wharves, quays, warehouses and boilers; (b) prohibition of employment of a child in cleaning premises on which machinery worked by power is temporarily below machinery in motion; (c) power of the district council used for the purpose of the construction of a building or any to make by-laws for escape in case of fire. The most important structural work in connexion with the building the purpose administrative alterations were: (a) a justice engaged in the only of obtaining security against accidents). Other entirely same trade as, or being officer of an association of persons new provisions in the act of 1895, later strengthened by the act engaged in the same trade as, a person charged with an offence of 1901, were the requirement of a reasonable temperature in may not act at the hearing and determination.of the charge; workrooms, the requirement of lavatories for the use of persons (b) ordinary supervision of sanitary conditions under which employed in any department where poisonous substances are outwork is carried on was transferred to the district council, used, the obligation on occupiers and medical practitioners to power being reserved to the Home Office to intervene in case of report cases of industrial poisoning; and the penalties imposed neglect or default by any district council.

The Employment of Children Act 1903, while primarily | owner or hirer, so far as respects any offence against the act com-
providing for industries outside the scope of the Factory Act,
mitted in relation to a person who is employed in connexion with the

machine or implement, and is in the employment or pay of the

incidentally secured that children employed as halfActs of timers should not also be employed in other occupations. The Notice of Accidents Act 1906 amended

1903, 1906,

1907. the whole system of notification of accidents, simul

taneously 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.

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 art
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
is stopped, are deemed to be employed until the contrary is proved.
manufacture carried on, except at meal-times, or when machinery
The act, however, does not apply to employment for the sole purpose
of repairing the premises or machinery, nor to the process of pre
serving 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.

The foremost provisions are those relating to the sanitary con-
dition of the workplaces and the general security of every class of
worker. Every factory must be kept in a cleanly con-
dition, 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 re-
quirement 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 ob
tained 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 applic-
able. 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.

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:

The workplaces to which the act applies are, first, "factories" and workshops"; secondly, laundries, docks, wharves, &c., enumerated above as introduced and regulated partially Definionly by the act of 1895 and subsequent acts. Apart from tions. 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

Sanita tion.

Security and accidents.

64

Security in the use of machinery is provided for by precautions | hours' interval for meals and a limit of five hours for spells and as regards the cleaning of machinery in motion and working between (conditional) permission of overtime in non-textile factories. The the fixed and traversing parts of self-acting machines hours of work must be specified, and from Monday to Friday may be driven by power, by fencing of machinery, and by em- between 6 A.M. and 6 P.M., or 7 A.M. to 7 P.M.; in non-textile factories powering inspectors to obtain an order from a court of and workshops the hours also may be taken between 8 A.M. and 8 P.M. summary jurisdiction to prohibit the use, temporarily or or by order of the secretary of state for special industries 9 A.M. to absolutely, of machinery, ways, works or plant, including use of a 9 P.M. Between these outside limits, with the proviso that mealsteam boiler, which cannot be used without danger to life and times must be fixed and limits as to spells observed, women and limb. Every hoist and fly-wheel directly connected with mechanical young persons may be employed the full time, children on the power, and every part of a water-wheel or engine worked by contrary only half time, on alternate days, or in alternate sets mechanical power, and every wheel race, must be fenced, whatever attending school half time regularly. On Saturdays, in textile its position, and every part of mill-gearing or dangerous machinery factories in which the period commences at 6 A.M. all manufacturmust either be fenced or be in such position that it is as safe as if ing work must cease at 12 if not less than one hour is given for meals, fenced. No protected persons may clean any part of mill-gearing in or 11.30 if less than one hour given for meals (half an hour extra motion, and children may further not clean any part of or below allowed for cleaning), and in non-textile factories and workshops manufacturing machinery in motion by aid of mechanical power; at 2 P.M., 3 P.M. or 4 P.M., according as the hour of beginning is 6 A.M., young persons further may not clean any machinery if the inspector 7 A.M. or 8 A.M. In" domestic workshops" the total number of hours notifies it to the occupier as dangerous. Security as regards the use for young persons and children must not exceed those allowed in of dangerous premises is provided for by empowering courts of ordinary workshops, but the outside limits for beginning and ending summary jurisdiction, on the application of an inspector, to prohibit are wider; and the case is similar as regards hours of women in their use until the danger has been removed. The district council, or, women's workshops." Employment outside a factory or workshop in London, the county council, or in case of their default the factory in the business of the same is limited in a manner similar to that laid inspector, can require certain provisions for escape in case of fire in down in the Shop Hours Act, to be touched on presently. Overtime factories and workshops in which more than forty persons are em- in certain classes of factories, workshops and warehouses attached ployed; special powers to make by-laws for means of escape from to them is permitted, under conditions specified in the acts, for fire in any factory or workshop are, in addition to any powers for women, to meet seasonal or unforeseen pressure of business, or prevention of fire that they possess, given to every district council, where goods of a perishable nature are dealt with, for young persons in London to the county council. The means of escape must be kept only in a very limited degree in factories liable to stoppage for free from obstruction. Provisions are made for doors to open out- drought or flood, or for an unfinished process. These and other wards in each room in which more than ten persons are employed, and cases of exceptional working are under minute and careful adminis to prevent the locking, bolting or fastening of doors so that they trative regulations. Broadly these same regulations as to exceptional cannot easily be opened from inside when any person is employed or overtime may apply in laundries but the act of 1907 granted to at meals inside the workplace. Further, provisions for security may laundries not merely ancillary to the manufacture carried on in be provided in special regulations. Every boiler for generating factory or workshop (e.g. shirt and collar factories), additional power steam in a factory or workshop or place where the act applies must to fix different periods of employment for different days of the week, have a proper safety valve, a steam gauge, and a water gauge, and and to make use of one or other of two exceptional methods of every such boiler, valve and gauge must be maintained in proper arranging the daily periods so as to permit of periods of different condition. Examination by a competent person must take place length on different days; these exceptional periods cannot be at least once in every fourteen months. The occupier of any factory worked in addition to overtime permissible under the general law. or workshop may be liable for penal compensation not exceeding £100 Laundries carried on in connexion with charitable or reformatory in case of injury or death due to neglect of any provision or special institutions were brought in 1907 within the scope of the law, but rule, the whole or any part of which may be applied for the benefit special schemes for regulation as to hours, meals, holidays, &c., may of the injured person or his family, as the secretary of state deter- be submitted by the managers to the secretary of state, who is emmincs. When a death has occurred by accident in a factory or powered to approve them if he is satisfied that they are not less workshop, the coroner must advise the factory inspector for the favourable than the corresponding provisions of the principal act; district of the place and time of the inquest. The secretary of state such schemes shall be laid as soon as possible before both Houses of may order a formal investigation of the circumstances of any accident Parliament. 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. 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, Physical fitness of and in any class of workshops to which the requirement has been extended by order of the secretary of state, and

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 Dangerous 10 P.M. or before 6 A.M. Sunday work is prohibited except, and un under conditions, for Jews; and in factories, workshops healthy and laundries six holidays (generally the Bank holidays) Industries. 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 twentytwo 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

workers. 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.

The employment of children, young persons and women is regulated as regards ordinary and exceptional hours of work, ordinary Hours of and exceptional meal-times, length of spells and holidays. The outside limits of ordinary periods of employment and protected holidays are, broadly, the same for textile factories as for persons. 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