I.—B.

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10. I take it that you are speaking as a worker, and also as a representative of the Typographical Society and other unions?— Yes. 11. You also see in subsection (b) that you are not permitted to work more than eight hours, excluding meal-times, in any one day, and also in subsection (c) for more than four hours continuously without an interval of, at least, one hour for dinner ?—Yes. 12. Will you suggest to the Committee how you are going to work for forty-five hours a week by five eight-hours spells and a four-hours spell: would you suggest knocking off at 12 on Saturday, and beginning another hour after 1 o'clock ?—I see the point, and, of course, from the workers' point of view, we would suggest 12 o'clock instead of 1 o'clock. So as not to curtail the hours, the workers have considered this matter, and on the one half-holiday, when they are going to cease work, they would be prepared to work that extra hour then. 13. It is a mathematical puzzle in the subclause : how are you going to work forty-five hours in a week by working five eight-hour days and one four-hour day? We ail recognise that 12 o'clock is the proper stopping-time on Saturday, and the Bill says you will have to stop at 12 o'clock?— At the present time most factories work until 1 o'clock on Saturday. They do not complain, because they have not to work the other three hours in the week. 14. I want you to help the Committee to solve what appears to be a mathematical puzzle : how can you work forty-five hours a week under the limitation of eight hours a day for five days and a four-hours spell on Saturday ?—I do not know, sir. 15. You also suggested that time and a quarter would be sufficient penalty, within certain busy seasons of the year, by the way of a preventative against the indoor working of overtime. That is the custom in your trade, time and a quarter, is it not?—lt has been so for a long time. 16. Do you know of any other trades where the custom is time and a half ? —Yes; I think the tinsmiths and the plumbers get time and a half. 17. Do you know of any trade where it is the custom to pay time and a quarter until midnight, and time and a half afterwards ?—Yes ; in the carpentering trade. 18. Do you think by fixing a minimum amount of overtime —to time and a half, say—would not that bring it down ?—After working three hours, it is a matter of arrangement whether the men get time and a half or double time. 19. Do you know any other trades, besides those you mentioned, where the three hours overtime in any one night would be absolutely useless? You might as well not work overtime at all. Take those dependent upon the coming and going of ships to repair their breakdowns, and such as that: do you know where the three hours would be quite useless unless the men could continue on further. They might as well not begin at all ? —lt is a third of a day, and it is doing a third of a day's work on the top of another day if a man has to work three hours' overtime after an eighthours day. The employer is taking it out of the constitution of a man, and there should be some extra money put on for the extra hours. 20. It is the question of being arbitrarily prohibited from working more than three hours in one day. If a sailing-vessel came here from Newcastle with a number of sails blown away, and asked for a certain number of sails to be made between the Saturday and Tuesday, and you had men who were willing and anxious to do that work, if this Act passes you would be compelled to refuse that work, and the captain of the ship would have to telegraph to Sydney for those sails: do you think that that would be good for the employ 6 and the employer ?—The workers, in Sydney especially, are taking the same stand as we are taking here with reference to overtime. 21. Do you think it would be necessary to make exemptions in this Bill, from the hard and fast operations of it, such as in the case of bootmakers, where they are dependent upon sudden orders and sudden crisis of machinery : would it be necessary to make exemptions in that case ? Would you suggest that a schedule for exemption of trades and callings might be made ?—Yes, I believe it would be conducive to the workers' interests generally if such a thing was made. 22. To make the Act elastic enough to meet occasions such as this ?—Yes. 23. You said you do not ask payment for holidays: do you know of any recommendation that has been made to the Government or any other authority asking for the holidays to be paid for in the case of males as well as juveniles under the old Act ?—From my own knowledge, I do not think there is, any worker or labourer that has asked for the payment of holidays. 24. You say that no overtime ought to be allowed on holidays. While admitting that that might be, and undoubtedly is, the right thing in some trades, again I ask, can you imagine urgent cases where it might be unavoidably necessary? —I can. 25. Again, you would suggest the exemptions in the schedule?— You could put in a clause that by permission of the Factory Inspector certain exemptions could be granted. 26. The only two points in this Bill, as I understood from your evidence, differing from the old Factories Act are that you want to have the hours of the working-week curtailed to forty-five for indoor trades, and you want the hour for dinner ?—That is so. 27. And, further, you would suggest that the holidays, as far as it can be made possible by law, should be inviolate ? 28. Mr. Arnold.] With regard to leaving work at 12 o'clock on Saturday, you say at the present time you think 1 o'clock is the recognised hour?— Not just at the present time. To just within six or eight months ago 1 o'clock was the recognised hour. 29. But it is 12 o'clock now ?—Under the award of the Arbitration Court it is now 12 o'clock. 30. And in other trades ?—The majority of other trades, with the exception of the woollenfactory, work until 12 o'clock. 31. And there has been a tendency for years to bring it to 12 o'clock ?—Yes, for a number of years. It should be 12 o'clock.