It is not my intention to assert that the present leaders of Social Democracy are scheming to treat the astronomical working-hour as the unit of normal time in the event of the introduction of a socialist government. They are not guilty of such madness. As I have shown, the present leaders of the Social Democrats are aiming at the eight hours day only as a protective measure and a means of affecting wages, and they aim at realising it purely on the present capitalist basis. They do not give the slightest indication of desiring that the eight hours day should give to all workers the same wage for every hour of normal or astronomical working-time. Social Democracy still confines its activity entirely within the limits of the capitalist order of society, however much isolated individuals might wish to step forward at once, and without disguise. But would the present leaders be able to hold their own if the masses expressed a desire to have each astronomical labour-hour in their maximum working-day (at present of eight hours, but no doubt before long of six hours) recognised as the normal time-hour?

I trust that in the foregoing pages I have at least succeeded in making this one point clear; that the Policy of Labour Protection has nothing to do with any normal working-day. And for this reason: that it rejects the “universal” maximum working-day; and rejects it not merely as a measure of protective policy, but also as a measure affecting wages.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER V. PROTECTION OF INTERVALS OF WORK: DAILY INTERVALS, NIGHT REST, AND HOLIDAYS.

1. Daily intervals of work.

The uninterrupted performance of the whole work of the day is not possible without intervals for rest, recreation, and meals. Even in the crush and hurry of modern industry, certain daily intervals have been secured by force of habit and common humanity.

Yet the necessity for ensuring such intervals by protective legislation is not to be disputed, at least in the case of young workers and women workers in factory and quasi-factory business. From an economic point of view there is nothing to be urged against it.

In addition to the protection of women and young workers with regard to duration of daily work, England has also enjoined intervals of rest for all protected persons. In textile industries the work must not continue longer than 4½ hours at a time without an interval of at least half an hour for meals; within the working day a total of not less than 2 hours for meals must be allowed. In other than textile industries, women and young persons have a total of 1½ hours, of which one hour at least must be before 3 o’clock in the afternoon; the longest duration of uninterrupted work amounts to 5 hours. In workshops where children or young persons are also employed, the free time for women amounts to 1½ hours; in non-domestic workshops where women alone are employed (between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.), 4½ hours is the total. The same time is allowed to young persons. In domestic workshops no free time is legally enforced for women; for young persons it amounts to the same time as that for women alone in non-domestic workshops.

I do not wish to deal with the regulations of all countries; I am only concerned to point out that, as compared with the labour protective legislation of England, the foremost industrial nation, German legislation on the protection of intervals appears to be rather cautious, as even in the von Berlepsch Bill it merely secures regular intervals for children within the 6 hours work, and for young persons (from 14 to 16 years) an interval of half an hour at mid-day, besides half an hour in the forenoon and afternoon, and for women workers an interval of an hour at midday (§ 135f).

The English law requires simultaneous intervals for meals for all protected persons working together in the same place of business; and such intervals may not be spent in the work-rooms where work is afterwards to be resumed.

The von Berlepsch Bill (§ 136, 2) requires only the young workers to leave the work-rooms for meals, and even this with reservation: “During the intervals the young workers shall only be permitted to remain in the work-rooms on condition that work is entirely suspended throughout the interval, in that part of the business in which the young workers are employed, or where it is found impracticable for them to remain in the open air, or where other rooms cannot be procured without disproportionate difficulty.”

The lengthening of the mid-day interval for married women or heads of households, to enable them to fulfil their domestic duties, is recommended by the German Reichstag and provided for in the von Berlepsch Bill, in the fourth paragraph of § 137, as follows: “Women workers above the age of 16 years, having the care of a household, shall be set free half an hour before the mid-day interval unless this interval amounts to at least 1½ hours. Married women and widows with children shall be accounted as persons having the care of a household, unless the contrary is certified in writing by the local police magistrate, such certificate to be granted free of stamp and duty.” This measure indicates a fragmentary attempt from the outside to protect the woman in her family vocation, and as such belongs to the question of protection of married women. The opponents of the measure—and they are many—make the objection that the result will be that women with families will be unable to obtain employment. Whatever may be said for or against the measure, there is no doubt that an interval of an hour and a half at mid-day ought to be granted to every workwoman, to place and keep her in a position in which she can discharge the duties of preparing the family meals and looking after her children. Therefore the injunction of a mid-day interval of 1½ hours in all factory business in which women over 16 years of age are employed would perhaps be a juster, more effectual, and more expedient measure, and would not prejudice the employment of women. But will it be possible to bring about the international uniform extension of the present interval of two hours to two hours and a half (inclusive of the forenoon and afternoon intervals)? The problem is surrounded by undeniable practical difficulties.

The Auer Motion (§ 106a, 2. cf. § 130) demands the extension of protection of intervals of work to all industries. Hitherto it has only been extended to women and young workers, and only to such as are employed in factory and quasi-factory business. We need not here go into the question whether it can be proved to be to some extent necessary in the more irksome and laborious trades and in household industry.

2. Protection of night rest (“Prohibition of night work.”)

Night rest has long been subjected by force of custom and necessity to very comprehensive measures of protection. Nevertheless it has become more or less of a necessity, even for men, to supplement such protection by extraordinary intervention of the State in factory and quasi-factory industrial trades, in some cases also in handicraft business (e.g. in bakeries, in public-house business, and in traffic and transport business). The self-help of the workmen and the moral influence of the civil and religious conscience are no longer a sufficient power of protection.

The entire general prohibition of all industrial night work would go beyond the limits of practical necessity, and the State would have no means of enforcing such a general prohibition.

Exceptions to the prohibition of night work are unavoidable, even in factory and quasi-factory business (cf. Chap. VII.).

The number of women and children employed in night work is not great. It might, however, become greater through the introduction of electric lighting in Germany. Protection of night rest for women and children is, therefore, as practically necessary as ever.

The actual condition of Labour Protection in regard to night work, and the efforts and tendencies to be discerned in reference to it at the present time, are as follows. The resolutions of the Berlin Conference demand the cessation of night work (and Sunday work) for children under 14, also for young persons, of 14 to 16 years and for women workers under 21 years of age.

The von Berlepsch Bill (§ 137i) altogether excludes night work for women in factory (§ 154) and quasi-factory business.

Of course exceptions may be permitted by order of the Bundesrath (Federal Council). The power of the Bundesrath to grant exceptions is very general and unrestricted (§ 139a, 2). “The employment of women over 16 years of age in night work in certain branches of manufacturing industry in which such employment has hitherto been customary, shall be permitted subject to certain conditions demanded by health and morality.”

The Auer Motion demands the exclusion of all women and young persons from “regular” night work.

3. Protection of holidays.

Protection of daily intervals secures the necessary intermission of work during the day. Protection of night rest guarantees the necessary and natural chief interval within every astronomical day. Protection of holidays makes provision for the no less needed ordinary and extraordinary intermission of work during entire days, Sundays, and festivals.

Strictly speaking, protection of holidays has long existed. The Church exercised a powerful influence in this respect over legislation and popular custom. Labour protection only seeks to restore this protection in its entirety (and as far as possible in its former extent—hence not merely in factory and quasi-factory business) in the State of to-day, which is practically severed from the controlling influence of the Church. Holidays are a general necessity; not merely a necessity for young persons, not merely in factory and quasi-factory industries, but in all industries.

But England, the greater number of the North American States, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France and hitherto Germany (with its highly unpractical article § 105, 2, of the Imp. Ind. Code), grant protection of Sunday rest only to their “protected persons,” and only in factory and quasi-factory business; but we must not here forget that there exists also protection of opportunities for religious observances extending over nearly the whole area of national industry, which is enforced partly by law and partly by tradition.

Austria prohibits Sunday employment in all industrial work.

An important extension and equalising of protection of holidays in Europe is projected in the resolutions of the Berlin Conference. The resolutions read as follows: “1. It is desirable, with provision for certain necessary exceptions and delays in any State: (a) that one day of rest weekly be ensured to protected persons; (b) that one day of rest be ensured to all industrial workers; (c) that this day of rest be fixed on the Sunday for all protected persons; (d) that this day of rest be fixed on the Sunday for all industrial workers. 2. Exceptions are permissible (a) in the case of any business which on technical grounds requires that production shall be carried on without intermission, or which supplies the public with such indispensable necessaries of life as require to be produced daily; (b) in the case of any business which from its nature can only be carried on at definite seasons of the year, or which is dependent on the irregular activity of elemental forces. It is desirable that even in such cases as are enumerated in this category, every workman be granted one out of every two Sundays free. 3. To the end that exceptions everywhere be dealt with on the same general method, it is desirable that the determination of such exceptions result from an understanding between the different States.”

The von Berlepsch Bill ensures a very extensive measure of protection of holidays by the following means: it extends the application of provisions § 105a to 105h in paragraph 1 of Chapter VII. of the Imp. Ind. Code to all workshop labour, it strictly limits Sunday work in trade and defines the permissible exceptions: moreover, it allows of unlimited extension of this kind of protection to all industry by means of an imperial rescript (§ 105g), and finally it foreshadows further protective action in the sphere of common law (105h).

The Auer Motion contains a general extension and simplification of protection of holidays (§ 107, 1): “Industrial work shall be forbidden on Sundays and festivals” (with certain specified and strictly defined exceptions).

Protection of holidays serves to four great ends: religious instruction, physical and mental recreation, family life and social intercourse. Protection of holidays has to take special measures to meet these four special ends.

In the first place holidays must be general, for the whole population, in order to allow of instruction in common, and general social intercourse. For this reason even the most “free-thinking” friend of holiday rest will be willing to grant it in the form of Sunday rest and festival days, and will allow it to be so called; in France and Belgium only, as appears from the reports of the Berlin Conference, do difficulties lie in the way of allowing protection of holidays to take the form of protection of Sundays and festival days.

The second end subserved by protection of holidays will be to ensure that only the absolutely necessary amount of work shall be performed on Sundays in those industries in which there is only a conditional possibility of devoting the Sunday to recreation, family life, and social intercourse, especially in carrying trades, employment in places of amusement and in public houses, in professional business, personal service, and the like, also in all labours which are socially indispensable. We shall return to this question in Chapter VII. (exceptions to protective legislation). The question now arises whether the religious protection of holidays does not already indirectly serve all the purposes of the necessary weekly rest for labour. This question must be answered in the negative. It is true that this does effect something which Labour Protection as such cannot effect, in that it extends beyond the workers and enforces rest on the employers also and their families. But it does not ensure to the workers themselves the complete protection necessary, and it does not fulfil all the purposes of protection of holidays.

The actual condition of affairs in Germany is as follows, according to the “systematic survey of existing legal and police regulations of employment on Sundays and festivals” (Imperial Act of 1885-6). In one part of Germany the police protection of the Sunday rest is in effect only protection of religious worship. In another group of districts, the suspension during the entire Sunday of all noisy work carried on in public places is enforced, but within industrial establishments noisy work is not forbidden. A third group of rules lays down the principle that Sundays and festivals shall be devoted not only to religious worship and sacred gatherings, but also to rest from labour and business.

The rules contained in this group apply especially to factory labour, but in many cases also to handicraft and various kinds of trading business, without regard to the question whether the work carried on in such business is noisy or disturbing to the public, exceptions being granted in certain defined cases. This third group of rules is in force in the provinces of Posen, Silesia, Saxony, the Rhine Provinces, Westphalia, the former Duchy of Nassau, and in the governmental district of Stettin, but in all these only with respect to factory work; also in the former Electorate of Hesse, the Bishopric of Fulda, the province of Hesse-Homburg, and in the town of Cassel; in Saxony, Wurtemburg, Mecklenburg Schwerin, Mecklenburg Strelitz, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Anhalt, Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, the old and the new Duchy of Reuss and Alsace-Lorraine.

A supplementary statistical inquiry into the extent of Sunday work in Prussia (not including districts whose official records could not be consulted) shows that Sunday work is carried on:—

In wholesale industries: in 16 governmental districts, by 49.4% of the works, and by 29.8% of the workers.

In handicraft business: in 15 governmental districts, by 47.1% of the works, and by 41.8% of the workers.

In trading and carrying industries: in 29 governmental districts, by 77.6% of the employers or companies, and by 57.8% of the workers.

Hence there can be no doubt as to the necessity in Germany for extraordinary State protection of the Sunday holiday, by means of protective legislation, applying also to handicraft business and to a part of trading and carrying industry.

About two-thirds of the employers and three-fourths of the workmen have declared themselves for the practicability of the prohibition of Sunday work, nearly all with the proviso that exceptions shall be permitted.

The duration of holiday rest practically can in most cases be fixed from Saturday evening till early on Monday morning.

The von Berlepsch Bill proposes to enforce legally only 24 hours; the Auer Motion demands 36 hours, and when Sundays and festivals fall on consecutive days, 60 hours.

The shortening of work hours on Saturday evening in factory industries and in industries carried on in workshops of a like nature to factories is a very necessary addition to Sunday rest; provision must also be made to prevent the work from beginning too early on Monday morning if Sunday protection is to attain its object. The shortening of work hours on Saturday evening is especially necessary to women workers to enable them to fulfil their household duties, and it is necessary to all workers to enable them to make their purchases. England and Switzerland grant protection of the Saturday evening holiday.

Legislation will not have completed its work of extending protection of holidays, even when the limits have been widened to admit trading business. Further special regulations must be made for the business of transport and traffic. Switzerland has already set to work in this direction. In Germany, in consequence of the nationalisation of all important means of traffic, much can be done if the authorities are willing, merely by way of administration.

We cannot lay too much stress on this question of the regulation and preservation of holiday time by means both of legislative and administrative action. For its actual enforcement it is true the co-operation of the local police magistrates is necessary, but the regulation of this protection ought not to be left in their hands. It must be carried on in a uniform system and with the sanction of the higher administrative bodies. We shall return to this question also in Chapter VII.

CHAPTER VI. ENACTMENTS PROHIBITING CERTAIN KINDS OF WORK.

Besides the mere protective limitations of working time and of the intervals of work, we have also the actual prohibition of certain kinds of work. Freedom in the pursuit of work being the right of all, and work being a moral and social necessity to the whole population, prohibition of work must evidently be restricted to certain extreme cases.

Such prohibition is however indispensable, for there are certain ways of employing labour which involve actual injury to the whole working force of the nation, and actual neglect of the cares necessary to the rearing and bringing up of its citizens, and there are certain kinds of necessary social tasks, other than industrial, the performance of which, in the special circumstances of industrial employment, require to be watched over and ensured by special means in a manner which would be wholly unnecessary among other sections of the community. And thus we find a series of prohibitions of work, partly in force already, and partly in course of development.

1. Prohibition of child-labour.

This is prohibition of the employment of children under 12 years of age (13 in the south), of children under 10 years of age, in factory work (see Book I.). Prohibition of child-labour must not be confused with restriction of child-labour (see Book I.), viz. restriction of the labour of children of 12 to 14 years of age, in the south of 10 to 12 years of age. It does not involve prohibition of all employment of children under 12 years of age, such as help in the household or in the fields.

The prohibition of child-labour within certain limits is necessary in the interests of the whole nation, for the physical and intellectual preservation of the rising generation, hence it is to the interest also of the employers of industrial labour themselves.

Special Labour Protection with regard to child-labour is indeed necessary. Ordinary administrative and judicial protection evidently are insufficient to ensure complete security to childhood. Equally insufficient are any of the existing not governmental agencies, such as family protection; the child of half-civilised factory hands and impoverished workers in household industries needs protection against his own parents, whose moral sense is often completely blunted.

Prohibition of child-labour in factory and quasi-factory industries rests on very good grounds. It is not impossible, not even very improbable, that prohibition of child-labour may sooner or later be extended to household industry; the abuse of child-labour is even more possible here than in factory work; the possibility is by no means excluded by enforcement of school attendance. But all family industry is not counted as household industry. The extension of Labour Protection in general, and of prohibition of child-labour in particular, to household industry, raises difficulties of a very serious kind when it comes to a question of how it is to be enforced.

In the main, prohibition of child-labour will have to be made binding by legislation. In its eventual extension to household industry, the Government will however have to be allowed facilities for gradually extending its methods of administration.

The task of superintending the enforcement of prohibition will in the main be assigned to the Industrial Inspectorate. The oldest hands in any business, the “Labour Chambers,” and voluntary labour-unions, will moreover be able to lend effectual assistance to the industrial inspector or to a general labour-board. The factory list of young workers may be used as an instrument of administration.

In Germany childhood is protected until the age of 12 years. The extension of prohibition of child-labour to the age of 14 years in factory and quasi-factory business, is, however, in Germany probably only a question of time. The Auer Motion in regard to this represents the views of many others besides the Social Democrats. Switzerland, as I have shown, has already conceded this demand, claimed on grounds of national health. The impending Imp. Ind. Code Amendment Bill places the limit at 13.

An internationally uniform advance towards this end by the equalisation of laws affecting the age of compulsory school attendance, would certainly be desirable.

The widest measure of protection of children is contained in the Austrian legislation, which decrees in the Act of 1885, that until the age of 12 years children shall be excluded from all regular industrial work, and until the age of 14 years, from factory work: “Before the completion of the 14th year, no children shall be employed for regular industrial work in industrial undertakings of the nature of factory business; young wage-workers between the completion of the 14th and the completion of the 16th year shall only be employed in light work, such as shall not be injurious to the health of such workers, and shall not prevent their physical development.”

The resolutions of the Berlin Conference recommended the prohibition of employment in factories of children below the age of compulsory school attendance.

Resolution III. 4 requires: “That children shall previously have satisfied the requirements of the regulations on elementary education.”

Exclusion of child-labour extends beyond the general inferior limit of age, in individual cases where the employment of children is made conditional on evidence of their health, as in England. And here the medical certificate of health comes in as a special instrument of administration in Labour Protection.

In certain kinds of business, prohibition of child-labour extends beyond the general inferior limit of age. England has led the way in such prohibition, excluding by law the employment of children below the age of 11 years in the workrooms of certain branches of industry, e.g. wherever the polishing of metal is carried on; of children below the age of 14 years, in places where dipping of matches and dry polishing of metal is carried on; of girls below the age of 16 years, in brick and tile-kilns, and salt works (salt-pits, etc.); of children below the age of 14 years, and girls below the age of 18 years, in the melting and cooling rooms in glass factories; of persons below the age of 18 years in places where mirrors are coated with quicksilver, or where white-lead is used.

2. Prohibition of employment in occupations dangerous to health and morality.

Such prohibition seems necessary in all industrial trades. It is however difficult to enforce it so generally, and hitherto this has not been accomplished.

The Imperial Industrial Code in the von Berlepsch Bill (cf. resolutions of the Berlin Conference, Chap. IV. 4, and V. 4) admits an absolute prohibition of all female and juvenile labour, under sanction of the local authorities (§ 139a 1.): “The Bundesrath shall be empowered to entirely prohibit or to allow only under certain conditions, the employment of women and young workers in certain branches of factory work, in which special dangers to health and to morality are involved.” The same Bill (§ 154, 2, 3, 4) extends such prohibition over the greater part of the sphere of quasi-factory business.

The last aim of protection of health—the exclusion of such injurious methods of working as may be replaced by non-injurious methods in all industrial work, and for male workers as well as for women and children—must be attained by progressive extension of that administrative protection to which the von Berlepsch Bill opens the way for quasi-factory labour (§ 154). It would be difficult to carry out in any other way the Auer Motion, for the “prohibition of all injurious methods of working, wherever non-injurious methods are possible.”

The general principle of prohibition might be laid down by law, and the enforcement of such prohibition, by order of a Supreme Central Bureau of Labour Protection, might be left to the control of popular representative bodies and to public opinion. Special legal prohibition, with regard to certain defined industries and methods of work injurious to health, would not be superfluous in addition to general prohibition; such special prohibition is already in force to a greater or less degree.

The success of the prohibition in question depends on the good organisation of Labour Protection in matters of technique and health; on the efficiency of local government organs, as well as of the Imperial Central Bureau, and on the impulse given by the more important representative organs of the labouring classes. All these organs need perfecting. Special prohibition needs the assistance of police trade-regulations in regard to instruments and materials dangerous to health.

The work that has already been done in the way of protection of morality by prohibition is not to be under-valued, although much still remains to be done. No sufficient steps have as yet been taken to meet that very hateful and insidious evil so deeply harmful to the preservation of national morality, viz. the public sale and advertisement of preventives in sexual intercourse, such as unfortunately so frequently appear in the advertising columns of newspapers, and in shop windows. This is not merely a question of protecting the morality of those engaged in the production and sale of such articles, but also of protecting the morality of the whole nation, maintaining its virile strength, and to some degree also preserving it from the dangers to the growth of population, incidental to an advanced civilisation. The powers at present vested in the police and magistrates to deal with offences against morals would probably be sufficient to stamp out this moral canker that is eating its way even into Labour Protection, without the scandal of legislation. But it is not by ignoring it that this can be accomplished.

The intervention of the State as regards Labour Protection in such factory and quasi-factory work as is dangerous to health and decency, is doubtless justified in its extension to household industry and trading industry of the same kind; for neither is the moral character of the generality of employers and heads of commercial undertakings sufficiently perfect, nor are the discretion and self-protection of the workers sufficiently strong and widespread to render State protection unnecessary and voluntary protection sufficient.

3. Prohibition of factory work for married women, or at least mothers of families.

This is a specially useful measure of protection. Modern industrial work has done a great injury to the family vocation of the woman, and thereby to family life; non-governmental agencies of Labour Protection, in its widest sense, have not been able to prevent this evil.

But the exclusion of wives and mothers from all industrial work, or from earning money in any kind of domestic occupation, would be far too extreme a measure. Certain industrial work has always fallen to the share of the female sex, and the absolute prohibition of female employment in any kind of industrial work would render large numbers of persons destitute, especially in the towns, and would thereby expose them to moral dangers and temptation.

The organs and instruments of administration for the protection of married women in factory and quasi-factory work, would be the same as for all other branches of protection of employment of women and young workers.

Prohibition of factory work for married women is advocated in the most decisive manner by Jules Simon, von Ketteler, and Hitze. Even the chief objection to such protection—the danger of the diminution of worker’s earnings, tempting them to seek immoral means of livelihood—is combated in the most remarkable and convincing manner by Hitze. This worthy Catholic writer meets the consideration of the loss of the factory earnings of women, with the counter-considerations of the depression of wage caused by the competition of female labour, and of the waste of money at public houses and on luxuries that takes place in such families as are left without a housewife or mother. We must be ready to make great sacrifices in the attainment of so great an object, for no less important a matter is at stake than the restoration of the family life of the whole body of factory labourers.

Only we must be under no delusion as to the difficulties of the immediate and complete enforcement of the prohibition. The adaptation of motor-machinery to use in the house, enabling the wage-earner to remain at home, might perhaps render it practically possible to carry out the prohibition in question.

It would also be necessary that the measures taken should be internationally uniform, so that separate national branches of industry might not suffer. A practical solution of the problem can only be arrived at after a careful collection of international statistics as to the married women and mothers employed in factory and quasi-factory work. Here especially, if in any department of Labour Protection, does the State require the support of the influence of the Churches, and of the organised, simultaneous, international agitation of the Churches in furtherance of this object. Whoever reads the above-mentioned writings—Hitze’s pamphlet gives extracts from the powerful writings of Jules Simon and von Ketteler—will derive therefrom some hope of the final success of Labour Protection in one of its most important future tasks. In the present situation of affairs I know of nothing which can shake the validity of Hitze’s conclusions.

In the meantime, restriction of employment of all female factory labour to 10 hours, as proposed by the commission appointed by the German Reichstag (see below), must be welcomed as an important step in advance. Hitze remarks: “The first condition of all social reform is the establishment of family life on a sound and secure basis. But how is this possible, so long as thousands of married women are working daily in factories for 11 and 12 hours, and are absent from their homes for still longer? Can domestic happiness and contentment flourish under such circumstances? And is the danger any less because concentrated in defined districts? For example, in the inspectoral district of Bautzen, in 1884, nearly 5,000 women were drawn away from their family life by factory work. No extended mid-day interval is granted to married women, so far as information on this point is to be obtained. Is it merely accidental that wherever employment of children is customary, there also the work of the mothers is more frequent? And must not the man’s earnings be lessened if the wife and child are allowed to compete with him? And is it merely accidental that Saxony, which is precisely the place where female and child labour is most largely employed, should also be the special haunt and stronghold of Social Democracy? Have we any right to reproach the Social Democrats with causing the destruction of family life, if we show ourselves indifferent to the actual loosening of family ties through the regular and excessive work in factories of housewives and mothers? Ought we to delay any longer in appealing to legislation, when the dangers are so pressing? What will become of the youth and future of our people if such conditions become normal? And in fact, unless legislation interferes, the number of factory women and of factory children will increase, not decrease. What a prospect!”

Separation of the sexes in the workrooms wherever possible, special rooms for meals and dressing, and provision for education in housewifery, are measures which are all the more urgent, if we grant the impossibility of altogether excluding women from factory work. This further protection is above all necessary for girls.

4. Prohibition of the employment of women during the period immediately succeeding child-birth.

Whilst prohibition of factory work for wives and mothers is of the first importance for the protection of family life, exemption from work during the period immediately succeeding child-birth of all women engaged in factory and quasi-factory employments, is a measure that is necessary for the health of the mother and the nurture of the newly-born.

The exclusion of pregnant women from certain occupations is another important question; the Confederate Factory Act leaves this in the power of the Bundesrath.

Prohibition of the employment of nursing mothers in factories is a measure that has long received recognition in some countries, and lately it has become general.

The resolutions of the Berlin Conference demand that the protection should cover a period of 4 weeks; Switzerland already grants protection for 8 weeks, a period which is recommended in Germany by the Auer Motion; the von Berlepsch Bill proposes 4 weeks (instead of 3 weeks as hitherto appointed by the Imp. Ind. Code); the Reichstag Commission proposed 6 weeks, and this will probably be the period adopted.

If it were necessary to enforce exemption from work after childbirth for all women engaged in industrial wage-labour, even this would scarcely be found to be attended with insuperable difficulties.

The Auer Motion on this point receives no notice in the von Berlepsch Bill.

It would be preferable in itself for such exemption to become general even for factory women, without special protective intervention from the State. But under the existing moral and social conditions legal prohibition of employment can hardly be dispensed with.

The measure may be carried out by the help of the official birth-list, or of a special factory list of nursing mothers. The industrial inspector will not be able to do without the help of the workers themselves.

The economic difficulties of the question are partly met in Germany by the existing agency of Insurance against sickness for all factory workers, which grants assistance during the period of lying-in, as during sickness. The means of help provided by the family and the club have to supply the additional assistance necessary for the nursing period.

The granting of state assistance to women during the lying-in period, without which exemption from work would be a questionable benefit, is vigorously opposed by some on grounds of morality as likely to promote the increase of illegitimate births, and by others from the point of view of the population question.

The question was brought before the German Reichstag, on the representation of Saxony, in 1886. Petitions from twenty-one district sick clubs in the chief district of Zwickau demanded the withdrawal of the legal three weeks assistance of unmarried women after childbirth, on the ground that this was calculated to promote an increase in the number of illegitimate births. The petitions were accompanied by statistics of each club showing that the funds were actually called in to assist more unmarried than married women. No information however was given as to the proportion between married and unmarried women members of the club, an omission which rendered the statistics worthless. Moreover the conditions existing in Zwickau are hardly typical of German industry as a whole.

A general collection and examination of statistics of sick funds must be made, and possibly the necessary information may be obtained by comparison of the numbers of births during the periods before and since the introduction of Insurance against sickness, and especially in such districts as had no free clubs, before the introduction of Insurance, for the assistance of women after child-birth.

Probably it will be found that the increase in the number of illegitimate births is not due to the assistance granted after child-birth by the official sick fund, if we take into consideration that in the district mentioned the assistance granted during the three weeks only amounted to from 7 to 12 marks, generally to less than 10 marks. “If,” says Hitze, “the meagre sum of the assistance granted could lead to an increase of illegitimate births, this fact would be more shocking than the number itself.” I take it that the root of the evil lies, not in the lying-in-fund, but in the destruction of family life and sexual morality by the employment of women in factories.

5. Prohibition of employment of women and children in work underground.

This prohibition is claimed in the interests of family life, of morality, and of the care of the weaker portion of the working class.

The enforcement of this prohibition comes within the province of the police in the mining districts, and of the industrial inspectorate.

But it is probably best that it should be legally formulated.

The extension of the prohibition to all women is recommended generally in the resolutions of the Berlin Conference, and the work has already been commenced in the von Berlepsch Bill.

The enforcement of the measure will meet with some difficulties in the mines of Upper Silesia, but it will also remedy serious evils.

The force of public opinion is insufficient to prevent the employment of women in work underground. The very necessary demand for prohibition of employment of women in work on high buildings, follows on the prohibition of their employment underground. Such employment is almost completely excluded by custom.

CHAPTER VII. EXCEPTIONS TO PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION.

All prohibition of employment and limitations of employment are apparently opposed to the interests of the employers. As long as they are kept within just limits, however, this will not be true generally or in the long run.

The just claims of Capital may be protected by admitting carefully regulated exceptions; but wherever and in so far as employment is opposed to the higher personal interests of the whole population, Capital must submit to the restrictions.

As regards the exceptions, these are in part regular or ordinary, in part irregular or extraordinary. We find examples of both kinds alike in the legislation for restricting the time of working and in legislation for protecting intervals of rest.

Ordinary exceptions to prohibition of employment consist mainly of permission by legal enactment in certain specified kinds of industrial work, of a class of labour which is elsewhere prohibited, e.g. night work for women and young workers. The greater number of cases of prohibition of employment appear in the inverse form of exceptions to permission of employment.

Ordinary exceptions to restriction of employment are provided for partly by legislation, partly by administration, i.e. partly by the Government, partly by the district or local officials.

Wherever in the interests of industry it is impossible to enforce the ordinary protection of times of labour and hours of rest, this is made good to the labourer by the introduction of several (two, three, or four) shifts taking night and day by turns, so that an uninterrupted continuance of work may be possible without any prolonged resting time either in the day or in the night; moreover, the loss of Sunday rest can be compensated by a holiday during the week.

Extraordinary exceptions occur chiefly in the following cases: (a) where work is necessary in consequence of an interruption to the regular course of business by some natural event or misfortune; (b) where work is necessary in order to guard against accidents and dangers; (c) where work is necessary in order to meet exceptional pressure of business.

Exceptions to protection of holidays.

These exceptions are so regulated that in certain industries holiday work is indeed permitted but compensation is supplied by granting rest on working days. The exceptions provided for by the Berlin Conference have already been given. The von Berlepsch Bill admits, if anything, too many exceptions. The Auer Motion permits holiday work in traffic business, in hotels and beer houses, in public places of refreshment and amusement, and in such industries as demand uninterrupted labour; an unbroken period of rest for 36 hours in the week is granted in compensation to such workers as are employed on Sunday.

Switzerland wishes to give compensation in protection of holidays in railway, steamship and postal service, by granting free time alternately on week days and Sundays, so that each man shall have 52 free days yearly, of which 17 shall be Sundays.

Exceptions to prohibition of night work.

The Imp. Ind. Code Amendment Bill (§ 139a, 2, 3) admits ordinary and extraordinary exceptions. The Auer Motion does not entirely exclude such exceptions, as it provides exceptions in traffic business and such industries as “from their nature require night work.” We cannot here enter into details as to the rules on the limitations of exceptions, and as to the enforcement of those rules.

Exceptions to the maximum working-day.

Overtime: Extraordinary exceptions to an enforced maximum working-day consist in permission of overtime; ordinary exceptions consist in the employment of children, women and men, in certain kinds of business, for a longer time than is usual (see Chapter V.).

The von Berlepsch Bill assumes a very cautious attitude in the matter of overtime. Extraordinary exceptions in the case of pressure of business are provided for as follows: “In cases of unusual pressure of work the lower courts of administration may, on appeal of the employers, permit, during a period of 14 days, the employment of women above the age of 16 years until 10 o’clock in the evening on every week-day, except Saturday, provided that the daily time of work does not exceed 13 hours. Permission to do this may not be granted to any employer for more than 40 days in the calendar year. The appeal shall be made in writing, and shall set forth the grounds on which the permission is demanded, the number of female workers to be employed, the amount of work to be done, and the space of time required. The decision on the appeal shall be given in writing. On refusal of permission the grievance may be brought before a superior court. In cases in which permission is granted, the lower court of administration shall draw up a specification in which the name of the employer and a copy of the statements contained in the written appeal shall be entered.”

The Auer Motion sets the narrowest limits to admission of overtime, permitting it only in case of interruption of work through natural (elemental) accidents, and then only permitting it for 2 hours at the most for 3 weeks, and only with consent of the “labour-board.”

Both in regulation and administration all these exceptions to protective legislation should be dealt with in a very guarded manner. Moreover they must be enforced on a uniform and widely diffused system, and they ought to afford a real protection to the fair and just employer against his more unscrupulous competitors.

Both these considerations—the strict limitation and uniform administration required for these exceptions—render it imperative that the regulation by law should be, so far as practicable, very careful and minute. Moreover it is requisite that the principle on which the administration has to act in dealing with exceptions shall be laid down as definitely as possible, and further that protective enactments shall be interpreted in a uniform manner by the organs of local government (Bundesrath), and finally that there should be general uniformity of method, both in the instructions given and in the supervision exercised by the intermediate courts of Labour Protection to the local authorities.

Much may be done in the way of effectual limitation of exceptions by dealing individually with the separate kinds of employment, in the matter of Sunday rest and alternating shifts. In the Düsseldorf district it has been proved by experience that by specialising the exceptions, Sunday rest may be granted to a large percentage of the workmen even in the excepted industries themselves (gas works, brick and tile kilns, etc.).

The special instruments of administration for the regulation of exceptions to this kind of protection are the certificate of permission, the entry in the register of exceptions, and the public factory rules.

The industrial inspector is entrusted with the supervision of the exceptions; but the assistance of the employer is very desirable, and is frequently offered, as it is to his interest that the application shall be just and uniform.

The central union of embroiderers in East Switzerland and the Vorarlberg district, e.g. which was formed in 1855, and which now includes nearly all the houses of business, supervises the strict adhesion to the 11 hours rule, by sending special inspectors into the most remote mountain districts, and imposing fines for non-observance to the amount of from 200 to 300 francs (Hitze).

CHAPTER VIII. PROTECTION IN OCCUPATION, PROTECTION OF TRUCK AND CONTRACT.

(A) Protection in occupation.

Protection in occupation is directed towards the personal, bodily and moral preservation of wage-earners against special risks incurred during the performance of their work. Protection in occupation is already afforded to a certain degree by Labour Insurance, in the form of Insurance against accidents and sickness.

The bodily and moral preservation of those engaged in business forms no new department of Labour Protection. It has long been more or less completely provided for by the Industrial Regulations and by special labour protective legislation in almost all civilised countries.

Protection in occupation is afforded by the enactments dealing with dangerous occupations, with the regulations of business, with the management of business, with the workrooms and eating and dressing rooms, and with the provision of lavatories. In the Imp. Ind. Code Amendment Bill the task of protection in occupation is formulated thus: Ҥ 120a, Employers of industry shall be bound so to arrange and keep in order their workrooms, business plant, machinery and tools, and so to regulate their business, that the workers may be protected from danger to life and health, in so far as the nature of the business may permit. Special attention shall be paid to the provision of a sufficient supply of light, a sufficient cubic space of air and ventilation, the removal of all dust arising from the work and of all smoke and gases developed thereby; and care must be taken in case of accidents arising from these causes. Such arrangements shall be made as may be necessary for the protection of the workmen against dangerous contact with the machines or parts of the machinery, or against other dangers arising from the nature of the place of business, or of the business itself, and especially against all dangers of fire in the factory. Lastly, all such rules shall be issued for the regulation of business and the conduct of the workers, as may be necessary to render the business free from danger.

Ҥ 120b. Employers of industry shall be bound to make and to maintain such arrangements and to issue such rules for the conduct of the workers as may be necessary to ensure the maintenance of good morals and decency. And, especially, separation of the sexes in their work shall be enforced, in so far as the nature of the business may permit. In establishments where the nature of the business renders it necessary for the workers to change their clothes and wash after their work, separate rooms for dressing and washing shall be provided for the two sexes. Such lavatories shall be provided as shall suffice for the number of workers, and shall fulfil all requirements of health, and they shall be so arranged that they may be used without offence to decency and convenience.

Ҥ 120c. Employers of industry who engage workers under 18 years of age shall be bound, in the arrangement of their places of business and in the regulation of their business, to take such special precautions for the maintenance of health and good morals as may be demanded by the age of the workers.

“§ 120d. The police magistrates are empowered to enforce by order the carrying out in separate establishments of such measures as may appear to be necessary for the maintenance of the principles laid down in § 120 to § 120c, and such as may be compatible with the nature of the establishment. They may order that suitable rooms, heated in the cold season, shall be provided free of cost, in which the workers may take their meals outside the workrooms. A reasonable delay must be allowed for the execution of such orders, unless they be directed to the removal of a pressing danger threatening life or health. In establishments already existing before the passing of this Act only such orders shall be issued as may be necessary for the removals of grave evils dangerous to the life, health or morals of the workers, and only such as can be carried out without disproportionate expense: but this shall not apply to extensions or outbuildings hereafter added to the establishment. Appeal to a higher court of administration may be made within 3 weeks by the employer.

“§ 120e. By order of the Bundesrath directions may be issued showing what requirements may be necessary in certain kinds of establishments, for the maintenance of the principles laid down in §§ 120a to 120e. Where no such directions are issued by order of the Bundesrath, they may be issued by order of the Central Provincial Courts, or by police regulations of the courts empowered with such authority, under § 81 of the Accident Insurance Act of July 6th, 1884.”

This formulary may be considered specially successful and almost conclusive.

The insertion of the foregoing clauses in the general portion of chap. vii. of the Imp. Ind. Code Amendment Bill ensures such protection in occupation as is adequate to all necessities of life, to the whole body of industrial work included within the sphere of the Industrial Code.

One item of Labour Protection in occupation might be supposed to consist in guarding against over-exertion, by means of the abolition of piece-work and “efficiency wage.” But this claim, in so far as we find it prevailing in the Labour world, is made more on grounds of wage policy than as a necessary measure of protection. The economic advantages to the workers themselves of these methods of payment are so great that the abolition of “efficiency wage” is not, I think, required either on grounds of wage policy or of protective policy. We must, however, pass over the consideration of this question, whilst admitting that there is still a great deal to be done in this direction by means of free self-help and mutual help.

(B) Protection of intercourse in service, Truck Protection in particular.

To protection in occupation must be added—as a last measure of the protection of labour against material dangers—protection of the wage-worker in his personal and social intercourse outside the limits of his business with the employer and his family, and with the managers and foremen. In default of a better term, we have called this protection of intercourse in service.

Outside the actual performance of his work, the wage-worker is threatened by special dangers which can only be averted by extraordinary intervention of the State. These dangers affect the person and domestic life of the wage-worker.

Apprentices especially, and all wage-earners living in the same house as the employer, are liable from their position as the weaker party, to intimidation, ill-treatment, and neglect. Provision is made against such dangers by the ruling of the Industrial Regulations on the relations of journeymen and apprentices to business managers and employers.

Special protection has long been afforded in the social relations between the servant on the one side, and the employer and his family on the other. This takes the form of protection against usury, against exploitation of dependents, especially if they are ignorant and inexperienced. This protection in social relations may also be called—involving as it does, in by far the largest proportion of cases, protection against undue advantage derived from payment in kind—“Truck Protection.”

The usury in question may take the form of a profit in the way of service, or exploitation of the workman, by forcing him to perform work outside the agreement as well as the work of the business, or instead of it; or again, it may be profit on payment, derived from payment of wages in coin or kind; or it may be profit on credit, loan, hire and sale, derived by compelling the workman to enter into disadvantageous transactions in borrowing, contracting, and hiring, and by requiring him to purchase the necessaries of life at certain places of sale where exorbitant prices are demanded for inferior goods.

To prevent the employer from gaining such unfair advantage over the “members of his family, his assistants, agents, managers, overseers, and foremen,” the German Industrial Code has long since interfered by ordering payment in coin of the realm, by prohibiting credit for goods, and by limiting to cost price the charges for necessaries of life, and of work supplied (including tools and materials). Any agreements for the appropriation of a part of the earnings of the wage-worker for any other purpose than the improvement of the condition of the worker or his family shall be declared null and void. The Auer Motion demands also that “compulsory contributions to so-called ‘benefit clubs’ (savings banks attached to the business) shall be prohibited.”

This form of protection, which I have called protection of intercourse, is extended to all kinds of industrial work, as is also the case with protection in occupation, though not with protection by limitations of employment. In Germany this extension is effected by incorporating in the general portion of chap. vii. of the Imp. Ind. Code Amendment Bill the rules for protection in occupation and protection against usury, and also by including non-manufacturing (§ 134) as well as manufacturing work in the rules of the Industrial Regulations against personal ill-treatment and neglect.

Hitherto no special courts have been appointed for the administration of protection of intercourse, which has been left generally to the ordinary administration and especially to the judicial courts. In other cases it is left to the industrial courts of arbitration of the first and second instance rather than to the industrial inspectors. But extraordinary protection is afforded by special rulings of common law on illegal agreements, on nullity of agreement, on escheat of contributions to savings banks made in defiance of prohibition, on failures to complete contracts of apprenticeship and service, etc., etc.

The Imp. Ind. Code provides protection of intercourse in the business of household industry also, in the ruling of the second clause of § 119. The usefulness of this ruling depends indeed on the improvement of the organisation of Labour Protection which is still imperfect and insufficient in its application to household industry. The compulsory and voluntary assistance of the employers and their commercial agents, with or without control by the industrial inspector, is the aim towards which attention must be directed for the further development of protection of intercourse in household industry. The above-mentioned central union of workers in the embroidery industry in East Switzerland, which is for the most part household industry, shows what may be done by voluntary unions in the way of protection within the sphere of household industry. One inspector says: “The computation of the amount of embroidery done, i.e. the basis for the calculation of wages, is determined; the relations between the “middleman,” the employer and the workers are regulated; and a place of sale is provided for all work rejected by the employer on account of alleged imperfections. The classification of patterns—i.e. the fair graduation of wages according to the ease and rapidity, the greater or less trouble and expense with which the pattern is executed—has for a long time been one of the main objects of the union.”

(C) Protection of the status of the workman (protection of agreement, protection of contract).

The term protection of contract must here be understood in a wider sense than in that of a mere guarantee of freedom of contract, and judicial protection of labour contracts; hence I have called it protection of the status of the workman.

This protection of the status of labour includes a multifarious collection of existing measures of protection, and impending claims for protection which we may regard as falling under three heads: protection of engagement and dismissal, protection against abuse of contract, and protection in fulfilment of contract.

1. Protection of engagement and dismissal.

By protection of engagement we mean protection of the worker against hindrances placed in the way of admittance into service; it is protection in the making and carrying out of agreements, partly protecting the workman against unjust loss of character, and partly giving him the right to claim a character. Protection against loss of character might further be divided into protection against defamation by individuals—foremen or employers—and protection against defamation by combinations of employers.

The Labour world claims protection against loss of character in the demand for the abolition of the labour log, and in Germany where the general log is not used, in the demand for the abolition of the young workers’ log which, however, is still recommended by many from considerations that have no connection with depreciation of work.

Wherever the labour log is still used, protection, against loss of character has long been afforded by prohibition of entries and marks which would be prejudicial to success in obtaining fresh employment.

Protection is demanded, but as yet nowhere granted, against defamation by combination of employers, of workmen who have made themselves disliked, against black lists, circulars, etc. The penalties of such defamation by combination in the Auer Motion are directed against employers and employers only, although in point of fact there are not infrequent cases of combinations among workmen for the defamation of employers. The Motion runs thus: “(§ 153) Whoever shall unite with others against any worker because he has entered into agreements or has joined unions, and shall endeavour to prevent him from obtaining work, or shall refuse to employ him, or shall dismiss him from work, shall be punished by imprisonment for three months.”

Another fragment of protection of engagement has long existed in the penalties attached to certain infringements of the right of combination, with reciprocity of course for the employers (cf. § 153 Imp. Ind. Code.)

The guarantee of testimonials has long been afforded—and has met with no opposition—as a means of protection against defamation by individual employers.

Side by side with protection of engagement we have protection in quitting service.

Special protection in quitting service—beyond the ordinary administrative and judicial protection of labour contract against unjust dismissal—consists partly of: protection in dismissal from service, i.e. against expulsion by the employer, and partly, of protection in voluntarily quitting service, i.e. quitting service for special reasons. Both these measures are applied to the whole of industrial wage labour, and have hitherto generally been enforced by the regular courts of justice and administration, by application, however, of special rulings of industrial legislation on written agreements, on the right of special dismissal from service, and the right of quitting service, and on the length of notice required, etc. The further development of protection in quitting service will probably more and more require the extraordinary jurisdiction of the industrial courts of arbitration. Protection against compulsory dismissal into which one employer may be forced by another employer by intimidation, libel, and defamation, is afforded by special penal Acts, and, like protection against breach of contract, is more particularly protection of the employer and is only indirectly protection of the worker.

2. Protection of contract, in the strict sense; protection by limitation of the right of contract, by completion of contract, and by enforcing fulfilment of contract.

Beyond the ordinary judicial protection afforded by the obligations attached to service contract, special guarantees of protection are in part already granted, in part demanded, against abuse of contract, incomplete fulfilment and non-fulfilment of service contract to the disadvantage, as a rule, but of course not in all cases, of wage-labour.

This protection is afforded partly by formal regulations, partly by judicial rulings on special cases. The latter form of protection in contract is closely allied to protection in intercourse (see above); the two overlap each other.

The protection afforded by contract regulations consists in the enforcement of certain formal requirements, and the granting of certain remissions, such as e.g. the requirement of written agreements and the remission of duty on written agreements, etc. First and foremost stands the obligation to post up the working rules. A parte potiori[13] all protection of contract might be called protection of working rules.

The working rules serve in reality to give the workman himself the control over his own rights, but they also are to the interest of the employer.

The von Berlepsch Bill further extends this sort of method to factory and quasi-factory labour (§ 134a-134g), permitting the workmen in any business to exert a considerable influence upon the drawing up of the working rules. Sections 134b and 134c read thus: “§ 134b. Working rules shall contain directions: (1) as to the time of beginning and ending the daily work, and as to the intervals provided for adult workers; (2) as to the time and manner of settling accounts and paying wages; (3) as to the grounds on which dismissal from service or quitting service may be allowable without notice, wherever such are not determined by law; (4) as to the kind of severity of punishments, where such are permitted; as to the way in which punishments shall be imposed, and, if they take the form of fines, as to the manner of collecting them and the purpose to which they shall be devoted. No punishments offensive to self-respect and decency shall be admitted in the working rules. Fines shall not exceed twice the amount of the customary day’s wage (§ 8. Insurance against Sickness Act, June 15th, 1883), and they shall be devoted to the benefit of the workers in the factory. The right of the employer to demand compensation for damage is not affected by this rule. It is left in the hands of the owner of the factory to add to rules I to 4 further rules for the regulation of the business and the conduct of the workmen in the business. The conduct of young workers outside the business shall also be regulated. The working rules may direct that wages earned by minors shall be paid to the parents and guardians, and only by their written consent to the minors directly; also that a minor shall not give notice to quit without the expressed consent of his father or guardian.”