ing trades, voluntary boards composed of employers and employees had for many years fixed the log of prices to be paid for various classes of work.

Practically the same objections were raised by representatives of the boot, clothing and furniture trades.1 A very few of the employers expressed a willingness to see the board plan tried but insisted that both employers and employees must be allowed to elect their own representatives on the boards.

Most of the workmen who appeared before the committee expressed themselves as in favor of the wages board proposition, altho they confessed that there might be difficulties in the operation of the plan.3 Even the Chief Inspector of Factories, Mr. Harrison Ord, and his assistant, Miss Cuthbertson, altho in favor of the board plan, were uncertain as to how far it could go in regulating wages in the various trades. They pointed out that the bill did not contemplate any general regulation and that even within the trades to which it was to be applied, prices were to be fixed for making only a very few articles." The aim of the Government officials at this time seemed to be to show that the field of operations of the wages boards would be a very narrow one. Mr. Charles A. Topp, the UnderSecretary for the Colony, expressed well this attitude when he said:

It will be noticed that a Board may be appointed by the Governor in Council to fix the price for any particular article of clothing or wearing apparel, not clothing or wearing apparel, generally. Objections, I notice, were raised by several witnesses in regard to the difficulty of fixing wages and prices for such articles as mantles, skirts, millinery and so on. I have no doubt there is great force in those objections, but it was never contemplated that the Board would fix prices for such elaborate articles of attire, but there are

1 Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Factories and Shops Act, 1890, Amendment Bill. Minutes of Evidence, pp. 1-50.

2 Ibid., Minutes of Evidence, pp. 49-60.

1 Minutes of Evidence.

Ibid., pp. 60-67.

certain articles of tailoring done by women for which logs have already been fixed and worked with success for many years.'

In view of the objections raised by employers to the wages boards and the rather hesitating support which the boards received from employees and government officials, and in view of the fact that four of the eleven members of the select committee, including the chairman, had denounced the wages boards plan in the debates in Council, it is surprising that this committee in its report to Council retained in the bill the section providing for wages boards. This section was, however, greatly changed from the form in which it came from the Assembly and it must be said that it was much improved. The business men of the Council, having decided to accept the wages boards plan, proceeded to reshape the clauses along practical lines and it is quite possible that had these changes not been made the wages boards plan would have proved quite unworkable. The committee reported on this part of the bill as follows:

The balance of evidence is in favor of the appointment of a separate board for each trade, i. e., clothing or wearing apparel, boots and shoes, and furniture. Each Board should consist of not more than five representing the employers, and not more than five representing the employees, as may be prescribed.

Each Board should be elected half by the employers and half by the employees.

Employers to vote according to the average number of hands in their employ, including outside workers, and to be entitled to vote according to the class for which each factory pays registration fee, viz. factories employing one to ten hands, one vote; eleven to thirty hands, two votes; thirty-one to sixty hands, three votes; sixty-one hands and upwards, four votes.

All employees working in factories to be entitled to vote for four representatives.

All outside workers to be entitled to vote for one representative. The Chairman should be elected by each Board, or failing agreement, by the Governor in Council.

Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Factories and Shops Act, 1890, Amendment Bill. Minutes of Evidence, p. 94.

Each Board should be for the whole colony and should fix the lowest prices, also the proportion of apprentices and improvers.

Each board should have the power of deciding the hours of labor of girls, women and children, only.1

The bill with the amendments suggested was returned to the Assembly, which seemed willing to accept the changes relating to the wages boards. Inasmuch as the two houses could not agree in regard to the matter of permits to out-workers, the bill was not passed at this time but was retained by the Assembly until the following session.

During the recess the bill was much discussed in the newspapers and from the political platforms. The Council was severely taken to task by Mr. Alfred Deakin for its refusal to require permits from the outworkers and was strongly defended by Sir Frederick Sargood. The Anti-Sweating League kept up a determined fight for the inclusion of this clause, but at a conference held between a committee of this organization and the Legislative Council Committee it was agreed to substitute for the system of permits a plan of registering the out-workers, the register not to be open to the public.

The bill was again introduced in the Assembly by Mr. Peacock at the 1896 session of Parliament and was passed by that house in exactly the same shape in which it was left by the Assembly at the close of the preceding session. It was amended in the Council by providing for the registration of the workers outside of the factories and by adding "bread-making or baking" to the trades for which a special board was authorized to fix hours of employment and a minimum wage.2 The amendments were at once accepted by the Assembly

1 Report of Select Committee, p. iv.

2 Parl. Debates, vol. 81, pp. 378-380.

and it received the Governor's assent and became a law on July 28, 1896.1

The principal features of the wages boards legislation thus established have already been described in the recommendations made by the Select Committee of the Council. The special boards were to be provided only for the clothing, boot, furniture and bread-making trades, there being a separate board for each trade. Each board was authorized to determine the lowest price or rate which might be paid to any person for performing the labor of manufacturing either inside or outside a factory. For factory work, piece-work prices or time wages or both might be fixed, but only piecework rates were to be prescribed for work done outside factories. In fixing the rates of pay the board was to take into consideration the nature, kind and class of work and the mode and manner in which the work was to be done and any matter which might from time to time be prescribed. The board was also to determine the number or proportionate number of apprentices or improvers under the age of eighteen years who might be employed within any factory or work-room and their lowest rates of pay.

The determinations reached by the board were to be published in the Government Gazette and were to go into effect in not less than fourteen days thereafter on the date specified. The determinations were to be posted in a conspicuous place at the entrance to the factory or work-room and a copy furnished to every person or firm giving out work to be done outside a factory. The payment of lower wages than those specified was punishable by fines which increased with repetitions of the offense. A third offense brought not only a heavy fine but required the Chief Inspector

of Factories to cancel the registration of the factory or work-room.

Each board was to consist of from four to ten members equally divided between employers and employees within the trade and elected by them. The members of the board were to elect a chairman, not of their own number, and in case they failed to agree on one, he was to be appointed by the Government. The chairman was to have the deciding vote in all cases where the board members were unable to agree.

The act itself did not prescribe the mode of electing the representatives of employers and employees on the boards, but left this to be fixed by the Executive Council. Regulations were adopted on September 21, 1896, providing that occupiers of registered factories subject to the special board determinations who had paid a registration fee of less than 21 s. ($5.10) should have one vote, those whose fees were 21 s. and less than 42 s. ($10.20) should have two votes, those whose fees were 42 s. and less than 63 s. ($15.30) should have three votes and those who had paid 63 s. or more should have four votes.

The names of employees entitled to vote were taken from the lists which employers were required to furnish. If the workers outside factories exceeded one-fifth of the total number of employees in a given trade they were entitled to nominate and elect one of the five representatives of employees; otherwise they voted with the employees engaged in factory work.1

There were other excellent features of this Victorian Factories Act of 1896, some of which had already appeared in the laws of other countries, while others now found their way into legislation for the first time. But they do not concern us at this point. Taken as

1 Regulations of Executive Council, September 21, 1896.