INDIAN COTTON FACTORIES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2561, 8 December 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

INDIAN COTTON FACTORIES.

An Imperial Parliamentary paper recently issued contains the report of the commission appoiuted to consider the working of cotton factories in the Bombay Presidency. Among their recommendations were the following which would raise a howl if they were proposed for application in New Zealand. No child less than nine years of age (the present minimum limit being seven years) should be employed in a factory, and no child should be employed for more than nine hours out of the 24, the working hours being 7 a.m. till 5 p.m., one hour being allowed for meals and rest. But any child who could produce a certificate that he or she had passed a suitable and easy educational standard or put in a certain number of attendances at school might be employed if of no lower age than eight years. No mill hand should be regarded as an adult, and the labour of an adult exacted from him or her, until he or she had attained the age of 14. In other words mill employees should be considered to be children until they had attained the age of 14 years instead of 12 years, as under the existing law. An exception of this rule should be permitted in the case of persons, who had satisfied a certain educational test; such persons should be treated as adults, and allowed to pit-form the work of adults on reaching the age of 13 years. No woman should bo employed in a factory for more than eleven hours in 24, and women's working hours should be from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m., with an hour's intervals for rest and meals. Women as well as children employed in factories should be granted four days' holiday in each month, the days being fixed and notified by Government after consulting the Millowners' Association. The days of rest should ordinarily be Sundays, but, when expedient, native holidays should he substituted for Sundays. The grant of holidays to male adult employees should not be compulsory by law.