ON WOMEN S LABOUR. 



357 



Prosecutions by Inspectors on account of employment beyond legal 

 limits of protected persons may be summarised as follows : — 



In the special report to this Committee from the Nottingham Investi- 

 gators it is stated that the smaller laundries find restricted daily hours a 

 serious inconvenience, contrary to the experience of the steam laundries. 

 In the official overtime returns it appears that no claims have been made by 

 occupiers of workshop laundries in Nottingham for overtime, whereas in 

 a small number of factory laundries the exception has been made use of. 

 It is noteworthy that over the whole kingdom occupiers of factory 

 laundries make a far more general use both absolutely and relatively of 

 the overtime exception than do the occupiers of workshop laundries. It 

 may be that illegal and unreported overtime is more often resorted to in the 

 latter case, although this is not borne out by the experience of the Factory 

 Inspectors in West London. It is more probable that tlie elastic and 

 movable limits legally permissible for each day amply serve the purpose of 

 the smaller laundry without addition of overtime, and that the steam 

 laundries organising their daily period on more rigid lines throughout the 

 week, more readily resort to additional hours when a pressure arises, 

 Mrs. Tennant forwards the statement of an occupier of a large steam 

 laundry that before the introduction of the Factory Act the hours were 

 7 A.M. to 6.30 P.M., with two hours for meals, Monday to Wednesday 

 inclusive ; 7 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. Thursday and Friday ; and on Saturday 

 until work was finished, but never later than 8.30 p.m. ; on every day two 

 hours for meals. Thus the daily limit never exceeded IH hours, ami 

 the weekly total G3, not including meal-times. Yet he says, ' On the 

 introduction of the Factory Act our hours were increased.' This could 

 only be legally in weeks in which overtime was permissible, but possibly 

 the average in the less busy times rose. This evidence comes from a 

 seaside resort, but there is much evidence to similar eftect from the 

 factory inspectors' reports in the year following the application of the Act. 

 ' The "coming under the Act " has been found not to bring the expected 

 relief, but to give sanction to the late hours and long day's work hitherto 

 regarded as unnecessary evils tolerated in an unregulated industry. . . . 

 The provision for an extra meal when working overtime has not been 

 made applicable . . . and the women found themselves legally employed 

 from 5 o'clock, the end of tea-time, till 10 p.m. without any break. . . . 

 The class who would seem to be really benefited by the Act are the 

 packers and sorters, whose hours of employment commonly reached over 

 seventy (often nearer eighty) in the week ' (Miss Squire). The hours in 

 some parts of the country remained stationary, notably in Yorkshire and 

 Lancashire towns. ' JVIanagers inform me that they could not work up to 

 the sixty hours limit if they wished, because better conditions could be 

 obtained by their workers in the mills' (Miss Anderson). ^ 



We have no materials for a definite comparison of rates of wages in 

 different parts of the country, but there is a consensus of opinion that in 



) J^nmial Report of t^e CJiirf Ini'j)ector, 1S9G, pp. G7, 08. 



