JAPANESE FACTORY LAWS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7868, 2 August 1911, Page 5

JAPANESE FACTORY LAWS

After ten years of work on the subject, the Japanese Government has just laid before Parliament its projiosals for the protection of tho factory workers of Japan. The Government desires to apply the Bill to all -workshops , and factories with more than ten workers. This’ would include 15,426 factories and 649,171 workers. The Commission which drew up tho Bill in the first place restricted inspection to factories or . twenty workers, and the final compromise is likely to work out at fifteen. Perhaps tho most interesting part of the Government’s proposals is that which' applies to women and children. If the Bill passes into law, children under twelve years of age will no longer be employed in the factories of Japan. No young man or woman under fifteen years of age will be allowed to work more than twelve hours a day; a provision that suggests that these young people are overworked at present. They will also be protected from night work. ’ Then again young people under sixteen years of age are to enjoy two days’ rest iu the month, and iu the case of day and night shift workers the holidays will amount to four days. A day labourer will not be expected to work for more than six hours gt a stretch without a break of half an hour, while in the course of a ten-hours’ day ho will be able to claim an hour off. Another provision prohibits the employment of girls and young people under fifteen on electrical machinery and in other dangerous trades. The law as far as it goes is an excellent one, and now that the Marquis of Katsnra has come to terms with the Seiyukai, the strongest Parliamentary group in Japan, which opposed protection for workers on the ground that it laid a too heavy burden on industry, there is every prospect of the Bill passing into law.