SWEATING COMMISSION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2047, 17 May 1890, Page 3

SWEATING COMMISSION.

The Sweating Commissioners’ recommend that a new or amended Factory Act should be passed, including amongst others, provisions for registering factories and work-rooms and penalties where work-ooms are kept open for working purposes during meal hours. If any operative found in a factory or work-room outside the specified hours, though not actively engaged in work, it should be recognised as a breach of the law. No boy or girl should be allowed to work in a factory under the age of 14. No young person between Jthe agees of fourteen and eighteen should be allowed to work in any factory for more than forty eight hours in any week, and not at all between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Newspapers and printing offices should be brought under the Act. Every manufacturer of goods for sale should be required to procure a trade mark, and all goods should be stamped, To prevent if possible the suffering caused by? female assistants in shops by long continuous standing, as shown in the Christchurch and Dunedin evidences, the Commission express sympathy with early closing, but make no definit recomendation. They favour the establishment of boards of conciliation and arbitration, based on the equitable representation of labour and capital; alse a bureau of statistics with a view of obtaining reliable data as to the social and economic condition o industry in the colony. The Government should be asked to introduce with the least possible delay a new Factory Bill embodying the above recommendations. Three commissioners, the Rev. Mr Waddell, and Messrs D. P. Fisher and Colin Allan, record their dissent from the statement “ That the custom known as the London sweating does not exist.” They claim that one or two instances of London sweating, that is, sub-contracting, were proved, showing that the system is in operation though only to a limited extent.