town or village until a vote had been taken and assented to by a majority of the electors voting thereon at the next annual election of councillors. An amendment of 1925 (c. 26) required that a local by-law must first be submitted to a vote of the electors upon receipt of a petition signed by at least ten per cent of those who voted at the last preceding municipal election. SUMMARY The Maritime Provinces passed Sunday observance laws in the late 1700's and legislation of this kind was adopted by Upper Canada in 1845 and the Northwest Territories in 1883. The Manitoba Legislature in 1886 empowered the municipalities to pass by-laws with respect to Sunday observance but this was repealed in 1898 and "An act to prevent profanation of the Lord's Day" was substituted. The only Sunday observance legislation of British Columbia is a proclamation of the governor in 1863, which brought into force in the colony, then Vancouver Island, the laws of England on the subject as they existed in 1858. Most of the provincial Sunday observance laws were passed before Confederation. Although by the British North America Act criminal law, which includes questions of religion and morality, was assigned to Dominion jurisdiction, the provinces retained their Sunday observance laws and made some amendments. Court decisions on the Nova Scotia and Ontario laws indicated that these amendments were not within provincial authority. The Dominion Lord's Day Act, passed in 1906, prohibited transaction of business or any labor for gain on Sunday unless permitted under the act as "works of necessity and mercy" or by provincial legislation. It also prohibited employment of any person in receiving, transmitting or delivering telephone or telegraph messages or in any industrial process or in connection with transportation, to perform the usual work of his ordinary calling on Sunday unless he were given during the next six days, twenty-four consecutive hours of rest. This provision did not apply to industrial workers whose ordinary daily hours did not exceed eight. The law permitted numerous exceptions as "works of necessity and mercy," offenders could not be prosecuted without the consent of the Attorney General of the province concerned and provincial laws were not affected. In 1895 the Ontario Legislature by an amendment to the Electric Railway Act forbade street railway companies to operate cars on Sunday on pain of the penalties provided in the Sunday observance act of the province. In the same year the Ontario government failed in a legal action to prevent the operation of Sunday street cars under the Sunday observance laws and amended the law in 1897 to bring street railways definitely within its provisions. When in 1903 the Privy Council held that the Sunday observance law was ultra vires of the provincial legislature the province was able, through its authority over property and civil rights, to forbid (1904, c. 10) street railways, tramways and electric railways subject to its jurisdiction to employ persons on Sunday. In 1909 any city with a population of over 50,000 was authorized to permit Sunday street cars if the voters approved, and in 1920 this authority was extended to any city with a population of 15,000. By a law of 1912 the maximum weekly work-period for street railway employees was fixed at six days of ten hours each. In Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan the evolution of the legislation with respect to the operation of street cars on Sunday has been the same as in Ontario with but slight variation. British Columbia has only one law on this subject a statute of 1916 authorizing the Lieutenant-Governor in Council to make regulations limiting the number of days' work in a week for street railway employees. Nova Scotia has empowered the Board of Commissioners of Public Utilities to limit the number of days in every eight days during which employees of the Halifax Electric Tramway Company can be employed. The provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have no legislation on the subject. In 1904 the Dominion government provided that although a steam or electric railway might be transferred from provincial to Dominion jurisdiction the employees of any such railway should be subject to any laws of the province with regard to Sunday labor in force at that time. Street railways now generally operate on Sunday, either in the absence of provincial legislation or through the repeal of such legislation or by permission of the municipality under authority granted by the province. While therefore many street-railway employees must work on Sunday, they have the protection of the Dominion Lord's Day Act, which guarantees, with a minor exception,' twenty-four consecutive hours' rest during the week. The third group of laws on this subject comprises the various provincial acts which make provision for a weekly half-holiday for employees in shops. A law of the British Columbia legislature in 1916 compelled municipalities to establish a weekly half-holiday for shop employees, in this way guaranteeing to workers of this class a weekly rest period of a day and a half. This law of British Columbia is the only legislation of the kind in Canada. The earlyclosing acts of Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan authorize, but do not require, 1 In the list of exceptions is "the operation of any Canadian electric street railway company, whose line is interprovincial or international, of its cars, for passenger traffic, on the Lord's Day, on any line or branch which is, on the day of coming into force of this Act, regularly so operated." municipalities to pass by-laws compelling retail stores to close for a weekly half-holiday. Ontario in 1920, British Columbia in 1923, and Alberta in 1924 passed laws which assure to employees of fire departments twenty-four hours off duty in every week. Laws of Quebec, passed in 1918, and of Ontario, 1922, establish a weekly day of rest for hotel and restaurant employees. A weekly day of rest on Sunday was granted to employees in bakeshops in Ontario by the Bake Shops Act of 1896 and to workers in barber shops in the same province by a law of 1901. In British Columbia employees in bakeshops were given the Sunday rest in 1901. While in Canada the weekly rest is generally given on Sunday, there is no specific provision in any of these laws, Dominion or provincial, requiring that in as far as possible the weekly rest shall be given to all the staff at once, as proposed by the convention of 1921, nor is there any provision for suspending or diminishing the rest period after consultation with organizations of employers and employees, as set forth in the same convention. In the United States six states and the federal government have laws embodying this principle of one day of rest in seven. A federal law applies only to post-office employees. The California and Connecticut laws exempt "any case of emergency," and the Connecticut law has a long list of exemptions. The laws of Massachusetts and New York of 1913 and Wisconsin of 1919 are the most effective.1 1 Commons and Andrews, Principles of Labor Legislation, pp. 280-81. CHAPTER IX ABOLITION OF CHILD LABOR "The abolition of child labor and the imposition of such limitations on the labour of young persons as shall permit the continuation of their education and assure their proper physical development." Peace: Article 427, 6.) (Treaty of Children under fourteen shall not be employed in agriculture during hours fixed for school attendance (1921 convention), nor in industrial undertakings (1919 convention), nor on ships (1920 convention). Every employer in an industrial undertaking must keep a register of all persons under sixteen employed by him and of the dates of their births (1919 convention). Children under fourteen engaged in agricultural night work must be allowed at least ten consecutive hours' rest and young persons between fourteen and eighteen at least nine consecutive hours (1921 recommendation). In industrial undertakings young persons under eighteen shall not be employed during the night except that in continuous processes those over sixteen may be employed (1919 convention). Young persons under eighteen shall be excluded from employment in certain specified processes involving the use of white lead and may be employed in processes involving the use of lead compounds only under certain conditions (1919 recommendation). The employment of males under eighteen and of all females is prohibited in painting work of an industrial character involving the use of white lead (1921 convention). Employment of young persons under eighteen on ships is conditioned on an annual medical certificate of fitness (1921 convention) and with certain exceptions they must not be employed as trimmers or stokers on vessels (1921 convention). The first child-labor legislation of Canada was passed in Nova Scotia in 1873, when the employment of boys under ten years in mines was prohibited and the hours of work for boys of ten and under twelve years were limited to ten for the day and sixty for the week. Now British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan have prohibited the employment of women and girls in mines and these |