H.—li

V

probable duration of employment will be aske„d of farmers by the Department, and preference will be given to those employers who guarantee workers some reasonable period of employment. The clothing trades have been working at very high pressure, and girl and boy labour in the woollen-mills and clothing-factories has been in great demand. Employers have been seriously handicapped by this shortage, and have repeatedly brought the matter under the notice of the Department. I have nothing to add, however, to my last year's report on this matter. Factories Act. In view of the fact that the method of compiling statistics as to the persons employed in factories has been changed (see paragraph entitled " Industrial statistics," page xxv), it was decided to omit most of the usual tables this year; so that, except in respect to the number of factories, no comparisons can be made with the former figures. The conclusions to be drawn from the new statistics will, however, be much more valuable, inasmuch as these will cover the whole year's factory ope-rations, instead of only those for a certain daj' of the year, and will, moreover, show the important item of duration of employment. As the remarks respecting these figures are somewhat lengthy, they will appear at the beginning of the appendix relating to industrial statistics. The following table shows the number of factories registered from 1895 to 1912, inclusive :

Table showing Number of Factories from 1895 to 1912.

The following table shows the number of factories in the four chief cities of the Dominion, classified according to the number of hands employed at date of annual registration—viz., April, 1911:—

Year. Factories. Increase. Factory-workers. Increase. .896 .897 .898 .899 .900 .901 .902 .903 .904 .905 .906 .907 L908 .909 4,109 4,647 5,177 5,601 6,286 6,438 6,744 7,203 7,675 8,373 9,123 9,881 10,788 11,586 12,040 12,302 538 530 424 685 152 306 459 472 698 750 758 907 798 454 262 29,879 32,387 36,918 39,672 45,305 48,938 53,460 55,395 59,047 63,968 67,713 70,403 75,310 78,625 78,848 2,508 4,531 2,754 5,633 3,633 4,522 1,935 3,652 4,921 3,745 2,690 4,907 3,315 223 L910 77,806 Decrease. 1,042 Increase. 984 L911 L912 12,768 12,847 466 79 78,790 * As above intimated, owing to the number of factory workers in New Zi 'ear, these items arenot^shown. aland not having been ascertained this

Factories emp] loying Town. 30 Hands 31 to 51 to 101 to 151 to, 201 to 251 to md under. 50. j 100. 150. j 200. 250. 300. 301 to 350. 351 to 400. 401 to 450. 451 to: Over j Total 500. I 500. | Factories. Auckland Wellington Christchurch Dunedin 1,506 1,123 1,261 1,099 54 27 21 17 39 18 24 22 2 2 6 10 I 4 1 2 3 4 2 1 12 5 2 3 2 'aI 2 1,608 .. I 1,177 2 1,322 2 j 1,156 .. i .. Totals 4,989 119 103 20 5 2 2 2 4 t 5,263 This shows a: increase on last yi lar's ;otal for thi four chief cities (5,15 i-9) of approximately per cent.