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the employes comfortable. I should also draw attention to the fact that the Inspectors of Factories bear testimony to the generally courteous and polite manner in which they are received, showing that the Factories Acts are not only being carried out. with little friction, but both employers and employed recognise the usefulness and necessity of such legislation. It is a great pleasure to me to have to convey such testimony to the Government; it shows that the time and attention given by the Legislature to the perfecting of the Act has not been thrown away. A source of discontent mentioned in my last report still exists, and the effects are regarded as entailing considerable hardship. I refer to the destruction of the eight-hours day for women and young persons, for whom the existing Act of 1894 prescribes a forty-eight-hour week. Under the Act of 1891 the women and youths had worked an eight-hours day with a weekly half-holiday; now they have to work for forty-eight hours per week (i.e., six eight-hours days), and they contend that thus they do not receive the half-holiday as time paid for by the employer, which the Legislature intended them to receive. They represent that it is no boon to be made to stop work and have an afternoon off at their own expense. It is certain, however, that in most cases they receive no more wages for working the forty-eight hours than formerly for working forty-five. It is also the fact that the women and lads no longer enjoy the eight-hours day once upheld as a principle of the Factories Act, but work on some days for nine hours a day on purpose to make up for the Saturday half-holiday. There has been a great increase this year in the applications by employers for permits to work their hands overtime. For example, in Christchurch permits were granted for 1,085 persons who worked 21,649 extra hours in excess of the full working-days, and for 507 persons who worked 2,297 extra hours on the half-holiday. In Dunedin there was a hundred per cent, increase in the applications for overtime over those of the previous year. While congratulating the industrial classes on the busy state of affairs that such applications evidence, it is very doubtful whether the Act should permit so great an extension of the labours of those at present employed. The Inspectors have power, if they think the health of the workpeople endangered, to stop the issue of such permits; but, if there is no question of immediately-risked health, the Inspector is put into an invidious ■ position should he refuse to grant overtime permits to any particular firm. In many cases the extra money earned, which (through the beneficent influence of the Factories Act) is now paid in almost every case, is of great assistance to the employes, and enables many a small luxury to be obtained which would otherwise be unprocurable. It is doubtful, however, whether it is fair to the industrial class socially to permit such absorption of its members into long-continued toil, and, still more, whether a person already fortunate in being able to obtain steady employment should be allowed to do two days' work for one so long as there are any able outsiders capable of performing similar duties. That girls and women should be compelled by overtime work to return to their homes late at night is most undesirable, not only from the temptations and annoyances to which they are thereby subjected, but also for the home itself left too long neglected or unvisited. I recommend that the section of the Act permitting overtime on any plea whatever on the half-holiday should be amended, and that such holiday should be fenced and jealously guarded with every possible legal enactment tending to its intact preservation. There should be provided to section 63 of "The Factories Act, 1894," a special penalty for breach of the said section. It is doubtful whether the general penalty imposed by section 65 applies to the provisions of section 63, and it certainly should not be left to the wronged person to take civil action for a breach of a most important part of the Act. Another section of the Factories Act requiring amendment is that numbered 59 in the Act of 1894. In reference to the certificate of birth which this section requires to be produced and shown to the Inspector when a person under the age of sixteen years applies for leave to work in a factory, the Act states that "such certificate of birth shall be given by the Registrar without fee, or a statutory declaration made by some competent person as to the age of the person for whom it is desired to obtain a certificate of fitness for employment." After the word " declaration" in the above sentence there should be inserted the words " without usual duty-stamp." It is difficult for some poor persons to find the half-crown necessary for the duty-stamp of the ordinary statutory declaration; sometimes it is quite impossible, as in the case of a woman receiving charitable aid, but who wishes her young son or daughter to help her by working in a factory. It is certainly a cruel hardship if the boy or girl should be prevented from working from such a cause, but there is a heavy penalty imposed by law for making such unstamped declaration. It was evidently the intention of the Legislature when framing the Act to make the production of a birth-certificate inexpensive, as they state that such certificate " shall be given by the Registrar without fee." In a similar spirit the declaration as to age, made in lieu of the birth-certificate, should also be accepted free of charge. Protective measures against workmen being required or allowed to be employed on Sundays are urgently necessary. At present men are only liable to prosecution by the police when they are pursuing their usual calling on Sundays in public places, or in places within view of the public. Whether a man should be allowed to work for himself on Sunday at the occupation he pursues on week-days is a moot point, and from many sides—economic, social, religious, and hygienic—is open to question ; but there is little doubt that an employe should not be thus allowed to work, except on extraordinary occasions, such as, for instance, when life is in danger. Compulsion has so many subtle and varying disguises, and " freedom of contract " is a theory so entirely outside the range of practical economics that it is cruel to allow a man or woman to be exposed to an employer's displeasure by throwing upon him or her the onus of refusal to work on Sundays if required. There is, however, a tendency towards insidious advance in the direction of destroying the only rest-day in the week. In towns it is noticeable among non-unionist bakers, in the country among miners and at the quartz-batteries. As no greater calamity could afflict the working-classes than the loss of their " one day off,", it is to be hoped that legislation will he introduced to destroy this evil at its poisonous root.