the license. The court said, The court said, "It would be strange if the municipalities to which has been delegated authority of granting such special licenses could now go on and maintain the discriminatory principle which the legislature had been at such pains to abolish." "

1

Manitoba

A statute of this type, “An act to prevent the employment of female labor in certain capacities," passed in Manitoba in 1913 (c. 19) at the request of union representatives and formally approved by the Trades and Labor Congress,2 has not been proclaimed. A law of 1923 (c. 101, s. 33), amending the charter of the city of Winnipeg, authorized the city to pass by-laws prohibiting the employment of any female persons, except under special license, in any place owned, managed or conducted by Chinese for the reception, refreshment or entertainment of the public, or any laundry.

Ontario

A bill to prohibit the employment of white women by Orientals was defeated in the Ontario Legislature in 1913 but in 1914 (c. 40) an amending clause to the same effect was inserted in the Factory, Shop and Office Building Act. It was provided that no Chinese person could employ in any capacity or have under his direction or control any female white person in any factory, restaurant or laundry. This amendment was to come into force on a day named by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council but the government declined to act in the matter in 1915 and in the 1920 session a labor delegation waited upon the attorney-general of Ontario and requested that the clause should be enforced.*

3

1 Yee Clun v. City of Regina [1925] 3 W. W. R. 714.

2 Trades and Labor Congress, 1913, p. 150.

8 Ibid., 1915, p. 26.

4 Labour Gazette, vol. xxi, p. 2.

British Columbia

The British Columbia Commission on Labor which reported in 1914, recommended the total exclusion of all Asiatics from Canada and statutory prohibition of the employment of white help by Asiatics. The British Columbia Federation of Labor also urged the government to prohibit the employment of white women by Orientals and in 1919 (c. 63, s. 13) an amendment to the Municipal Act forbade the employment in any municipality of white women in any restaurant, laundry or place of business or amusement owned, kept or managed by any Chinese person. But in 1923

2

(c. 76) this provision was repealed and the Women's and Girls' Protection Act was passed. This new law forbade white or Indian women or girls to reside or lodge in or to work in or, save as a customer, to frequent any restaurant laundry or place of business or amusement which police officials, as evidenced by certificates posted in their offices, considered inadvisable in the moral interest of the women or girls. A bill was introduced at the 1924 session to amend the Women's and Girls' Protection Act by prohibiting the employment of white girls and Orientals in the same dwelling but it failed of passage.

SUMMARY

The province of British Columbia is conspicuous in this type of legislation because of a number of measures directed against the Oriental worker. The province has imposed special taxation on Orientals and has endeavored to prohibit Chinese immigration but several of these measures have been declared ultra vires.

The British Columbia Government has also sought to

1 Report of the Royal Commission on Labour, Victoria, B. C., 1914, pp. 21, 26.

2 Trades and Labor Congress, 1915, p. 41; 1917, p. 72; 1918, p. 60.

exclude Oriental workers from employment on public works and public utilities and the Ontario Legislature has debarred citizens of any country which excludes Canadians from employment on its public works from being engaged on the construction of any subsidized railway in the province.

The first legislation of British Columbia with reference to the operation of coal mines, enacted in 1877, excluded Chinese and persons unable to speak English from positions of trust and responsibility. Later legislation prohibited the employment of Chinese and Japanese underground in coal mines and amendments to the law, restricting the granting of certificates of competency to persons conversant with the English language, worked to the disadvantage of the alien. In 1897 regulations were inserted in the metalliferous mines legislation which denied employment to Chinese and Japanese.

The early mines legislation of the Northwest Territories excluded persons unable to speak and read English from positions of trust and this provision has been retained by the province of Saskatchewan.

In granting compensation for accidents all provinces but Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island, which has no compensation law, differentiate between resident and non-resident dependents of injured workmen. New Brunswick in 1908 denied compensation to dependents residing in other countries and Quebec and Nova Scotia followed. Manitoba at first restricted compensation to dependents living in the province but later, dependents living within the British Empire were made eligible. The first modern workmen's compensation act of Canada, passed in Ontario in 1914, granted nonresident dependents the same compensation that the country of their residence would give in the case of an injured workman whose dependents lived in Ontario. This new principle was adopted by Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Yukon Territory

and New Brunswick. Alberta named the father and mother of the injured workman as the only non-resident dependents entitled to compensation after the workman had lived in Canada two years, or after one year in the case of a workman not of British nationality. British Columbia authorized the payment of such compensation to non-resident alien dependents as would afford them a degree of comfort equal to that enjoyed by dependents of the same class resident in Canada.

Several provinces have passed laws prohibiting the employment of white women by Chinese in restaurants and laundries but some of these laws have not been proclaimed and others have been replaced by legislation under which municipalities have discriminated in the granting of licenses.

In all fields of labor legislation other than those indicated workers and their families are granted the degree of protection enjoyed by native workers, as proposed in the recommendation of 1919. In the absence of a system of unemployment insurance the question of discriminatory treatment of aliens in the payment of benefits does not arise.

CHAPTER XII

ENFORCEMENT OF LABOR LAWS

"Each State should make provision for a system of inspection in which women should take part, in order to insure the enforcement of the laws and regulations for the protection of the employed." (Treaty of Peace: Article 427,9.)

A health service for the workers should also be established (1919 recommendation). In the organization of such a system the general principles outlined in the recommendation of the 1923 Conference 1 should be observed.

IN pre-Confederation times laws were enacted for the inspection of pearl, potash, salt pork, flour, etc., but inspection of private business in the interest of the employed was a later development, a necessary concomitant of the mines. and factories acts.

The machinery for the enforcement of labor laws has reached a considerable development since the beginning of the century and especially in the two most important industrial provinces, Ontario and Quebec. The Dominion Government and all the provinces now have departments or bureaus of labor except Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and of these Nova Scotia has inspection for factories and mines. Ontario established a Bureau of Labor in 1900, which was made the Trades and Labor Branch in 1916 and the Department of Labor in 1919. The New Brunswick Bureau of Labor was established in 1904 and the Manitoba Bureau in 1915. The British Columbia Department of Labor was organized in 1917 and a Deputy Min

1 Cf. supra, pp. 27-32.