672 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION" G. 
goods as coming from a private dwelling. In the working of this 
section we find that the wholesale and retail firms dislike the idea of 
affixing the label, and that this will act as a check to the giving-out 
system and consequent under-cutting of prices. I should add that in 
cases where hardship is likely to arise — say in the case of a widow with 
a young family — special written exemption may be given by the 
inspector. 
The Act provides with detailed care for the safeguarding of 
machinery, for cleanliness, ventilation, space, and other sanitary 
matters. Fire-escapes have to be provided, and all doors of a factory 
or workroom must be hung so as to open outwards, and neither locked 
nor fastened in any way during working hours. If more than six 
women or persons under sixteen are employed, a room must be pro- 
vided for them (with seats and tables) in which to take their meals. 
Shearing-sheds, where more than four are employed, arc also included 
in the Act. The inspector is bound to ascertain at least once a year 
that the dwelling-places and working-places of the shearers are 
cleanly and in a fit and proper state for the reception of workmen, 
and that necessary accommodation is provided. 
Now let os turn to those parts of the Act dealing with the age of 
the employees and their hours of work. No child — i.e., bov or girl 
under iourteen — may be employed except in small factories where not 
more than three persons are employed, and that only in special cases 
with the sanction of the inspector. No person under sixteen is to be 
employed without a certificate of fitness for the work, nor unless the 
inspector is satisfied that he or she has passed the fourth standard or 
an equivalent educational test. No person is allowed to employ a boy 
or girl under sixteen, nor any woman for more than forty-eight hours 
in one week, nor after 6 p.m., except that with a written permit from 
the inspector such persons may work for not more than three hours 
beyond the usual working hours on twenty-eight days in the year. 
The pay for overtime must in no case be less than 6d. per hour. The 
written permit to work overtime has to be posted up in the workroom, 
and a register is kept in the office of the department of the names of 
those working overtime and the dates of their doing so. No woman 
may be employed in a factory during the four weeks immediately after 
her confinement. With respect to legalised holidays, the occupier of 
a factory (a few businesses are exempted from this) must allow to 
every woman and to every person under eighteen in his employment 
the following holidays: — Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Good 
Friday, Easter Monday, the sovereign’s birthday, and every Saturday 
afternoon from 1 o’clock, without any deduction of wages. There is 
one more section amended in this Act that I must not omit to mention, 
and that is the provision that all proceedings under the Act must be 
heard and determined before a stipendiary magistrate alone. The 
justice or “ two or more justices of the peace” may not always be 
impartial in these cases. Such a comprehensive Act, and one so full 
of detail, would probably have been found difficult to work with new 
and untried machinery. But, as I said before, it is the outgrowth of 
twenty years’ tentative effort on the part of successive Governments 
of various political shades to improve the condition of the women and 
the young workers, and to prevent the seeds of the sweating evil from 
taking root in New Zealand. 
