A.—sc.

Resolution concerning Annual Returns of Employed Children under the School-leaving Age, submitted by the Committee on Minimum Age. Whereas the Conference in 1935 adopted a recommendation concerning unemployment among young persons, paragraph 47 of which is as follows : — " Until such time as the recommendation made in paragraph 1 is fully applied in the various countries, annual returns should be compiled showing the number of children still under the school-leaving age who during the year have been engaged in employment out of school-hours. Such returns should be classified by sex, age group, and occupation, and should give details of the days of the week and the seasons during which such employment was carried on, and the number and incidence of the hours of employment." The Conference invites the Governing Body of the International Labour Office to request the Governments to furnish such returns to the International Labour Office in. order that they may be published in one of the Office's publications. Draft Convention (No. 61) concerning the Reduction of Hours of Work in the Textile Industry. The General Conference of the International Labour Organization, Having met at Geneva in its Twenty-third Session on 3rd June, 1937, Considering that the question of the reduction of hours of work in the textile industry is the second item on the agenda of the session, Confirming the principle laid down in the Forty-hour Week Convention, 1935, including the maintenance of the standard of living, Considering it to be desirable that this principle should be applied by international agreement to the textile industry, adopts, this twenty-second day of June, of the year one thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven, the following Draft Convention, which may be cited as the Reduction of Hours of Work (Textiles) Convention, 1937 : — Article 1. 1. This Convention applies to — (а) Persons employed in an undertaking which fulfils the condition stated in paragraph 2 of this Article, including persons employed in any branch of such an undertaking, which branch does not fulfil that condition ; and (б) Persons employed in a branch of an undertaking, which branch fulfils the condition stated in paragraph 2 of this Article, even though the undertaking does not fulfil that condition. 2. The condition referred to in the preceding paragraph is that the undertaking or branch of an undertaking is engaged wholly or mainly in one or more of the series of operations delimited in paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 of this Article in the course of the manufacture of any kind of thread, yarn, twine, cord, rope, netting, or felt, or any woven, piled, knitted, or lacework fabric from any one or more of the following materials : Cotton, wool, silk, flax, hemp, jute, rayon, or other synthetic fibre, or any other textile material whether of vegetable, animal, or mineral origin. 3. The series of operations referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article begins,— (a) In the case of cotton, with the reception of the bales of ginned cotton for breaking up and cleaning ; (b) In the case of wool, with the reception of the raw wool for sorting and cleaning (excluding the process of anthrax disinfection) ; (c) In the case of silk, with the reeling of the silk from the cocoon or the steeping of the silk waste ; (d) In the case of flax, jute, and hemp, with the operation of retting, except where this operation is effected as work accessory to that of an agricultural undertaking ; (e) In the case of rayon or other synthetic fibre, with the reception of the materials used in the chemical production of the fibre ; (/) In the case of rags, with the sorting of the rags or the reception of the sorted rags ; and (g) In the case of any other textile material, with the operation prescribed by the competent authority as corresponding to the operations set out above. 4. The series of operations referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article includes the operations of bleaching, dyeing, printing, and finishing and similar operations, and ends with the packing and despatch of the products specified in that paragraph. 5. The series of operations referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article includes the making in whole or in part of any garment or other article only in the following cases :— (а) The case of hosiery-manufacture ; and (б) Cases in which the garment or other article is made by the same process as the fabric thereof. 6. In any case in which it is doubtful whether an undertaking or branch of an undertaking fulfils the cônditiôn stated in paragraph 2 of this Article, the question shall be determined by the competent authority after consultation with the organizations of employers and workers concerned, where such exist.

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