I.—B.

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by an Inspector. How would that apply in the case of small boroughs with only a thousand inhabitants, and where the Council is manned by the few leading tradesmen. Supposing an Inspector desired that one of these tradesmen should carry out these amendments?—lt is entirely a mistake. lam giving you a reason why the Council should not be brought within the operations of the Act—they are a prejudiced person. 104. Mr. Barclay.) I understand your Harbour Board is a very good Board, and tolerably successful in its operations, and so on, Mr: Ferguson ?—Yes. 105. Your men, I suppose, are tolerably well satisfied with the right to appeal now and again to the Conciliation Board. You have no difficulty in filling up your ranks, I suppose ?—No, quite the reverse. Men come to us, and the greatest trouble is in making the choice sometimes. 106. Now, then, under these circumstances, when there is a plentiful supply of men, and they are tradesmen, and you say they work generally about forty-four hours, it would make no difference to you if they had to work in shifts to comply with this Act, or anything of this sort ?—-Yes, sir, because the work could not be done in shifts. Supposing there is a breakdown, we want the men used to that plant and machinery for the purpose of doing the repairs. You cannot put on strange men. Men are willing to come to us for employment, because it is permanent work year in and year out, and they know they are not coming for a few hours. 107. Ami right in supposing, Mr. Ferguson, that probably the strongest objection your Board would have under this clause 30 would be to subsection (c), the weekly half-holiday. It does seem clear that you could not stop work on a half-holiday ?—lf the whole of our tally-clerks are brought in I do not know how we can carry on the work of our shipping—all our tally-clerks and storeman and that class of men. 108. Do you still maintain that, although your ordinary working-hours are forty-four, it would be impossible for you to comply with the provisions of the Act that say a person shall not work more than forty-five hours a week or more than eight hours a day. Supposing your ordinary day is eight hours, do you still say it would be impossible for you to comply with that provision, and, 1 suppose, there is the usual four hours they work On Saturday, and meal-time?—We do not trouble about meal-hours ; a man does not work more than five hours without a meal. Take the case of a ship wishing to work through the night: under this provision we could only get permission for our tally-clerks and storeman to work by going to the Labour Inspector, and then we could only do it for a certain number of hours in each year, and practically we could not carry on. We should have to increase our staff enormously. 109. Is it absolutely necessary to have the same tally-clerks, or will not some of the tallyclerks who work during the day work at night ?—During certain hours it is necessary. If ships have to work long hours then we exchange. If doing the ordinary work, up to" 12 o'clock at night, it is necessary to have the same tally-clerks. We have to give receipts for enormous sums of money, &c, and it is essential that the men should continue on this work. 110. Mr. Hutcheson.] How would the arrival of a ship in a sinking condition, such as the ship " Nelson" arrived in at the wharf a few years ago, be met? How would such a vessel be treated if you are restricted in the number of hours you work ?—lt simply means that we should break the law, and I do not think it is desirable that we should be put in the position of having to break the law. Mr. Jambs Caetee examined. (No. 22.) In reply to the Chairman's invitation to give evidence on the Bill before the Committee, Mr. James Carter, an employe in the Gear Meat-preserving and Freezing Company of New Zealand (Limited), said: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say that I am representing the majority of the Gear Meat Company's employes, and that we seek exemption from the provisions of clauses 18 and 19 of " The Factories Act, 1901." 111. The Chairman.] The hours of work and overtime ?—Yes. It will, no doubt, occur to you that, as I have mentioned I represent the majority of the employes, we are not all of one mind on this subject; and in order that you may thoroughly understand the position, I should like to explain what the minority is composed of: By far the largest part are slaughtermen, and they refused to join hands with us, because they are having their hours of work, wages, &c, settled by the Conciliation Board ; and the tinsmiths are practically in the same position. That leaves a residue of employes composed of men who are not affected by the season. They are employed by the week, and get their time in all the year round. They see in these sections of the Bill the possibility of shorter hours without, possibly, a diminution in their wages, and they are therefore well satisfied to see the Bill go through. Now, with regard to our reasons for asking for exemption : Practically for four months in the year we are working overtime, for four moths we are working full time, and for four months there is little or nothing to do. That is practically a broad classification of it, and that is what it will amount to. The effect of this section will be that not only will the men be unable to earn more than an ordinary rate of wage during the busy time, but the remaining two sections of the year would have to be divided between the additional number of hands that the company would have to put on in order to cope with the work. The real position is this : all these men are perfectly satisfied with forty-four or forty-five hours a week, providing they can get it; but they do not get it, overtime included. Ido not know that I should do any good by going into any further detail. Probably any further information which you want would be better derived by my being questioned by the Committee. There is one thing I would like to say, and that is : I would ask you to place more than ordinary stress upon this application, because it is made by men who have been advocates of this Government's policy, and they are men who on no account would put their names to a thing that appeared adversely to them.