AGAINST SWEATING.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 143, 16 December 1908, Page 7

AGAINST SWEATING.

DEPUTATION TO MR. ASQUITH. SYMPATHETIC EEPLY. WAGES BOARDS FORESHADOWED. By Tele/p-apn.— Press Association.— Copyright. LONDON, 15th December. An influential deputation representing the National Anti-Sweating League ! was introduced to the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, by the Archbishop ©f Canterbury. I The deputation urged upon Mr. Asquith that legislation should be passed to deal with the evil of sweated Ja- | bour. The request of the league was sup ! ported by Sir Charles Dilke, M.P., Mr. G. N. Barnes, M.P., secretary to the' Amalgamated Society of Pvailway Engineers, Earl Dunraven, who was chairman of t'ii-e House of Lords Committee on Sweating in 1688-90, and Mr. Sydney Webb, a well-known writer on sociological questions. In his reply, Mr. Asquith expressed entire sympathy with the objects of the league. Personally, he favoured proceeding through the medium of Wages Boards, and hoped that the Government would be able to devise some machinery for the inauguration of such bodies, properly equipped, which would be able to take prompt and effective action. They must, added the Prime Minister, proceed cautiously, recognising tho delicacy of the problem. The report prepared by Mr. Ernest I Ayes, Home Office Commissioner, and i issued as a Blue Book in July last, dealing with the question of Wages Boards and the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Acts of Australia and New I Zealand, had created the( impression that the home-work problem in Australia was very much less serious than in Great Britain.