ducing the working week to 48 hours or less are best indicated by
an enumeration of the cases in which a longer week is still worked.
In agriculture the normal weekly hours are 48 in winter and 50 in summer. These figures, however, do not in all probability indicate the number of hours actually worked. They are fixed under the Corn Production Act, and their principal value from the workers' point of view lies in the fact that hours worked in excess of 48 or 50 are paid for at overtime rates.
In constructional engineering an agreement has fixed the summer week at 495 hours, the winter week at 44 (this arrangement does not infringe the rule of an average 48-hour week).
In the linen industry of North Ireland workers in the bleaching and dyeing branches work, by agreement, 49^ hours per week.
A so-hour week is the rule in one or two smaller industries, such as the manufacture of picture-frame moulding, and type-founding. In the latter case, the workers agreed to work two hours per week (in addition to the normal 48) without pay, in return for which they enjoy an annual holiday on full pay.
In the rest of British industry the rule is the 48-hour week or less. On the railways the normal weekly limit is, by an agreement of Feb. I 1919, fixed at 48 hours (47 hours in the railway workshops). The daily hours, however, may exceed eight, provided that the weekly total does not exceed 48. The 44-hour week is worked in the building industry generally, in some quarrying, as at Aberdeen, in the manufacture of thread (though not universally), in glove- making (women) and tie-making, by dock workers (except at Bel- fast where the hours are 46), in the manufacture of envelopes, office and other furniture (again not universally), in bakeries in Scotland, in the textile warehouses of London and the wholesale warehouses of Manchester, and in most concerns in the cocoa and chocolate industry. Apart from a few very exceptional cases (e.g. glass- blowing, where the hours are from 35 to 37 per week) and the kaolin quarries of Cornwall and Devon (42 hours per week), practically every other British industry of importance enough to be organized has a weekly limit lying between 44 and 48 hours.
AUSTRALIA. The position as regards hours of labour is deter- mined in Australia by (i) Factory and Shop Acts, (2) Early Closing Acts, (3) decisions of arbitration courts and boards, including those of the Federal Arbitration Court, (4) direct legislation such as the Mines Act of the various states, and (5) collective agreements. The 8-hpur day (or less) and the 48-hour week (or less) are practi- cally universal in industry and commerce.
The Factory Acts date from 1900 in Queensland (amended several times subsequently), 1904 in Western Australia (amended 1912), 1907 in South Australia (amended 1908, 1910 and 1915), 1910 and 1911 in Tasmania, 1912 in New South Wales and 1915 in Victoria. The principal Early Closing Acts are those of 1899, 1900, 1906, 1910 and 1915 in New South Wales, of 1911 and 1912 in South Australia, of 1902, 1904 (two Acts), 1911 and 1912 (a consolidating Act) in Western Australia, and of 1911 and 1913 in Tasmania. In addition to these New South Wales has an Eight-hours Act of 1916, amended 1920, and Acts of 1910 and 1916 relating to the Saturday half-holiday and Sunday rest. Each state has mining legislation regulating hours amongst other conditions of labour in mines. Generally speaking these provide that no underground worker and no surface worker whose duties are laborious or responsible shall work more than eight hours per day, and Sunday labour is prohibited.
Arbitration courts and boards were first created in 1912 in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. The Acts establishing them have been in some cases frequently amended, and the courts now figure very prominently in the regula- tion of hours and in the settlement of disputes. For exampje, in New South Wales the Industrial Arbitration Act of 1912 directs the Court and the Boards of Arbitration that their awards must, in the case of all industries other than the coal and metalliferous min- ing industries, provide for working hours not longer than (i) 8 hours per day on 6 consecutive days, (2) 48 hours per week, or 96 hours in 14 consecutive days. Again, in Nov. 1920 a decision of the Federal Arbitration Board awarded the 44-hour week to a large group of industries. In New South Wales the Eight-hour (Amendment) Act of 1920 established a special court to inquire into the working hours in any industry and to consider the possible economic effects on that industry of a reduction to 44 hours per week. On April II 1921 this court reported in favour of the 44-hour week for a large number of groups of workers, including most of those employed in the building trades, in the manufacture of food and of furniture, in the iron trades and in printing. The decisions of the court were given effect by proclamations on April 16, and they came into force on May I 1921, with the exception of that referring to the iron trade, which became effective from May 22. Again, in Victoria, decisions of the Arbitration Commission, issued on June 19 1916 fixed limits to the working day in practically all industries, usually but not universally at eight hours.
NEW ZEALAND. The Factory Act of 1901, consolidated in 1908 and amended in 1910, fixed the working hours of men at 8| per day and 48 per week, of women and boys at 8} per day and 45 per week. Since then hours in most industries have been reduced to 8 per day and 48 or less per week by agreement or by awards of the Court
of Arbitration. The 44-hour week is^now the rule for brewers, brick- layers, electrical workers, employees in the manufacture of furni- ture, plasterers, stonemasons, tailoresses, wharf-labourers and some others. Bootmakers have a 45-hour week and typographers 42. In coal-mining a 5-day week is worked alternately with a 6-day week (8 hours daily ' ' bank to bank ") and in gold-mining the 44-hour week is the rule. In some cases the working day has been reduced to 7 (e.g. biograph operators) or 7! (trackmen employed on tramways).
An amendment to the Shops and Offices Act which came into force on Jan. I 1920 reduced the weekly total of working hours for shop assistants from 52 to 48, and permitted a maximum overtime of 100 hours per annum (not more than three hours in any one day).
CANADA. Both collective agreements and legislation have been used in the limitation of the working day in Canada, with the result that the 48-hour week is the rule in mining, on railways, in the pub- lic utility services, the building industry, the manufacture of chemi- cals, tobacco, food-stuffs, paper and printing, textiles, in the oil indus- try, in shipbuilding, carriage building and in the metal trades (with some exceptions). Telegraphists secured the 8-hour day in 1920. British Columbia and Manitoba have legislated on the hours of women workers, and Nova Scotia on those of young persons, in each case imposing the 8 and 48 rule ; in the Yukon Territory and Mani- toba the same limit has been fixed by law for state employees. Alberta and British Columbia have enacted the 8-hour day in coal- mines and for furnace workers, British Columbia in metalliferous mines, and Ontario in all mining industries. The weekly hours of women workers in restaurants in Manitoba are limited to 48 by administrative order. In the other industries above mentioned the 8 and 48 limits have been secured by collective agreements.
Hours worked on Canadian railways appear to be governed largely by the practice in the United States, where the McAdoo Award gave the 8-hour day. The same rule applies to the electric tram- ways of British Columbia.
SOUTH AFRICA. The hours of labour in factories are governed by the Factory Act (No. 25 of 1918) which laid down limits of 9^ hours daily and 50 hours weekly for adultst and a 45-hour week for young persons under 16 years of age. The Mines and Works Act (No. 12 of 1911) provides an 8-hour day and a 48-hour week for underground workers in gold-mines.
In addition to these legal limitations, hours are regulated by a number of collective agreements, particularly in the skilled trades. The surface workers in gold-mines and underground and other workers in coal and other mines have secured the 48-hour week by agreement. Certain categories of factory workers the more highly- skilled have also been able to secure the 48-hour week though their working hours are legally restricted by the Factory Act.
FRANCE. The 8-hour day in France began with certain employees of the State in 1901, and by 1914 it had been extended to about a third of the workers employed by the State. An inquiry made in 1906 showed that certain establishments in the chemical industries, in printing, textiles, metals and glass had adopted it, but in all only some 15,000 workers were concerned. In subsequent years the sub- stitution of the 3- for the 2-shift system gave the 8-hour day to others, notably to furnace workers (1911), and to those engaged in the manufacture of artificial silk and aluminium. During the war the 8-hour shift was adopted in many munition establishments.
The Eight-hour Act of April 23 1919 laid down that " the effec- tive working time of workpeople or employees of either sex and of any age shall not exceed 8 hours per day or 48 hours per week, or an equivalent limitation based upon a period of time other than the week, in industrial and commercial establishments or in business premises of any kind connected with them, whatever their nature, whether public or private, secular or religious, even where they are of a technical educational or religious nature." The application of the law was to be by administrative decrees. A considerable num- ber of these, applying the Act usually to certain industries, have been issued. The one of Dec. 12 1919 in reference to the textile industries will serve as a type. It provides for the limitation of the working hours to a maximum of 8 per working day in each week, but allows the weekly total of 48 hours to be so distributed as to permit of a shorter working day on Saturdays. To achieve this, a maximum of 9 hours per day may be worked. In the bleaching, dyeing and finishing branches of the industry it is possible (since a short working day is uneconomic in these processes) to distribute the 48 hours over 5 days only, with a maximum of 10 hours per day. The decree goes on to make minute provision for the extension of hours to make up for lost time due to slackness of trade (for which a maximum of 100 additional hours per year may be worked), for exceptional pressure of work (maximum 150 additional hours), for the provision of rest periods and for the keeping of registers of the hours worked. Altogether some 30 groups of trades or categories of workers have been covered by similar orders, including the more important French industries (leather and skins, books, boots and slippers, clothing, building, metal trades, hats, electricity, carriage and coach building, saddlery, etc.) and some commercial under- takings (hotels and cafes in Paris, hairdressers' shops, etc.).
In addition to this legislative regulation, a number of other trades have secured the 8-hour day by collective agreement, some of them the clothing workers, builders, textile workers in the
