Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/549

 NOTES AND MEMORANDA 527 the eight hours clause at all, anti in 1887 the former ran 56 hours a week antl the latter 54. One of the inspector's chief troubles is with the boys. The Act makes it illegal to employ young persons between thirteen ant] fifteen unless they have a school certificate of having passeel a certain requirecl stantlartl, antl to employ young persons between thirteen antl sixteen without a meclical certificate of their physical fitness for the work, for which the young persons themselves pay a fee of five shillings. These requirements are systematically evatletl, antl are, in the inspector's opinion, operating most prejuclicially to the training and efciency of colonial labour. Boys will not pay the five-shilling fee, ancl when a boy without his certificate is tliscoveretl by an inspector in one factory, he merely goes on to another, where he finels easy aclmittance, for boys' labour is in much clemand, ancl remains till he is caught again. In this way boys, ancl girls too, wanclef about from workshop to workshop, ant] from occupation to occupation, till they are sixteen, ant] fluting the best years for learning their tracle they are merely learning unsettlec] habits, so that the ' larrikins ant] loafers' are more ant] more abounding, and the skilled workmen growing fewer and fewer. The inspector looks on this as a very grave problem indeed. He thinks the recent Educational Act, which reduced the age of compulsory attendance at school from fifteen to thirteen, has done some good, and he recommends making the medical fee a liability of the employer. Another requirement of the Act which the inspector thinks operates injuriously is the requirement of 500 cubic feet of air for each person in the workshop clouble the English minimum. Some small employers, who could have improved their workshops to the required figure if the required figure were only 350 feet, have preferred dividing their establishments and scattering their hands in private houses, where they work under worse conditions and escape inspection. The provision of the Act for the compulsory closing of shops at 7 p.m. is so unsatisfactorily enforced, that the inspector recommends the transference of the duty from the factory inspector to the ordinary police. To begin with, the law itself gave the power to local municipal bodies to extend the hour of closing on a petition from a majority of the local shopkeepers, and the result is that different hours are observed in districts of Melbourne separated only by a street or a stream. In Richmond the shops close at seven, while over the briclge in Prahran they close at eight, ancl in Collingwoocl, Fitzroy, St. Kilcla ant] Melbourne proper they close at nine. But practically even these hours are very inclifferently observefl. How coulc] they be when the fine for breach of them is only a shilling, ancl there is hoboely to look after their observance but one or two factory inspectors ? They were better observec] in 1889 than in the previous years, in consequence, the inspector thinks, of new legislation being anticipated. In 1886 sixty- one fines were imposee] for breaches of this law in 1887 thirty, in 1888 fifty-one, ancl in 1889 thirty.