AMERICAN CHILD LABOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 49, 27 February 1923, Page 4

AMERICAN CHILD LABOUR.

By a decision given in the United , States Supreme Court on May 15 last, the Federal Legislation which Bought to control child labour throughout the States was declared invalid as being an encroachment on State rights. This means that the whole fight for Federal protection for children must be done again. For three rears the Federal Government was able to give its protection to children in factories, mines and quarriee, and so much is clear gain. But the Federal law, even had it been allowed to stand, would not have gone very fsr. It only applied to industries and occupations in which some fifteen per cent of child worker! were engaged, ilt provided no protection whatever for child labour in agriculture, street trade?, moving pictures and a host of other industries. According to the last available figures there are over two million children employed in labour of some kind in the United State?, and of these eighty-five per cent were not affected by the Federal law. All the same, now that the Federal law has been declared invalid, there is absolutely no protection for children except such protection as individual States may determine onHow lax individual States are may be seen from the fact that in one piece the National Child Labour Committee found children, four, five and six years of age picking cotton regularly while schools were in session. In Oklahoma, children only five years old were discovered in the regular occupation of cotton picking. One small cotton picker said, "1 sometimes pick till 1 have over a hundred pounds. I pick as long as I can pull the bag—till it gets so heavy I can't walk straight." Bix States have 'no age minimum for employment in either mines or quarries; fourteen States do not prohibit employment of children in dangerous occupations; seven States do not prohibt night work in any way. and twenty States do not require any certificate of physical fitness for children entering employment. There ie no law in any State in America which protects children in cotton and beet fields, in berry fields, on truck farms, or in any other form of agricultural labour. This neglect on the part of America to protect her children has brought about illiteracy, disease and crime to an extent that is hardly realised even in America itself. In the United States there are five million illiterates, mainly because children are *pnt to work instead of to school. Of the American men examined for war service in the first draft, 20 per rent were physically unfit, a result largely due to the fact that most of them had been in the child labour army years before they were called up for active scrvjee. In twelve months 15,000 children were killed by accident in the United States, most of the. aeejdente occurring while the children were engaged in some occupation. Juvenile delinquency and adult crime, for which the United States has the unenviable record of being first in the world, is also very largely due to child labour. The failure of the States has made international legislation on child labour difficult. The International Labour Office enforces its standard through the Court of International Justice. Hitherto, according to a statement made by Mr. Albert Thomas, the head of the Labour Office, all attempts to make an international standard effective have failed because many countries were waiting to see what stand America would take in the matter. Now. however, that the United States seem* disposed to join the International Court, it may be easier to eet remedial legislation.