1. Power of Board of Trade

(1) The Board of Trade may establish and maintain, in such places as they think fit, labour exchanges, and may assist any labour exchanges maintained by any other authorities or persons, and in the exercise of those powers may, if they think fit, cooperate with any other authorities or persons having powers for the purpose.

(2) The Board of Trade may also, by such other means as they think fit, collect and furnish information as to employers requiring workpeople and workpeople seeking engagement or employment.

(3) The Board of Trade may take over any labour exchange (whether established before or after the passing of this Act) by agreement with the authority or person by whom the labour exchange is maintained, and any such authority or person shall have power to transfer it to the Board of Trade for the purposes of this Act.

(4) The powers of any central body or distress committee, and the powers of any council through a special committee, to establish or maintain, under the Unemployed Workmen Act, 1905, a labour exchange or employment register shall, after the expiration of one year from the commencement of this Act, not be exercised except with the sanction of, and subject to any conditions imposed by, the Local Government Board for England, Scotland, or Ireland, as the case may require, and that sanction shall not be given except after consultation with the Board of Trade.

2. Regulations and Management

(1) The Board of Trade may make general regulations with respect to the management of labour exchanges established or assisted under this Act, and otherwise with respect to the exercise of their powers under this Act, and such regulations may, subject to the approval of the Treasury, authorise advances to be made by way of loan towards meeting the expenses of workpeople travelling

to places where employment has been found for them through a labour exchange.

(2) The regulations shall provide that no person shall suffer any disqualification or be otherwise prejudiced on account of refusing to accept employment found for him through a labour exchange where the ground. of refusal is that a trade dispute which affects his trade exists, or that the wages offered are lower than those current in the trade in the district where the employment is found.

(3) Any general regulations made under this section shall have effect as if enacted in this Act, but shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be after they are made, and, if either House of Parliament within the next forty days during the session of Parliament after any regulations have been so laid before that House resolves that the regulations or any of them ought to be annulled, the regulations or those to which the resolution applies shall, after the date of such resolution, be of no effect, without prejudice to the validity of anything done in the meantime under the regulations or to the making of any new regulations.

(4) Subject to any such regulations, the powers of the Board of Trade under this Act shall be exercised in such manner as the Board of Trade may direct.

(5) The Board of Trade may, in such cases as they think fit, establish advisory committees for the purpose of giving the Board advice and assistance in connexion with the management of any labour exchange.

3. Penalties for making False Statements

If any person knowingly makes any false statement or false representation to any officer of a labour exchange established under this Act, or to any person acting for or for the purposes of any such labour exchange, for the purpose of obtaining employment or procuring workpeople, that person shall be liable in respect of each offence on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding ten pounds.

4. Expenses of the Board of Trade

The Board of Trade may appoint such officers and servants for the purposes of this Act as the Board may, with the sanction of the Treasury, determine, and there shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament to such officers and servants such salaries or remuneration as the Treasury may determine, and any expenses incurred by the Board of Trade in carrying this Act into effect, including the payment of travelling and other allowances to members of advisory committees and other expenses in connexion therewith, to such amount as may be sanctioned by the Treasury, shall be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament.

5. Interpretation

In this Act the expression "labour exchange" means any office or place used for the purpose of collecting and furnishing information, either by the keeping of registers or otherwise, respecting employers who desire to engage workpeople and workpeople who seek engagement or employment.

6. Short Title

This Act may be cited as the Labour Exchanges Act, 1909.

CHAPTER VI

SWEATED LABOUR

[How to remove the worst evils resulting from long hours and low wages had disturbed the minds of British statesmen for a long time. Many philanthropists like Oastler, Hobhouse, Sadler, Kingsley, and the Earl of Shaftesbury laboured to improve the situation; and a Select Committee of the House of Lords made an elaborate investigation extending over the years 1888 to 1890. The Report of this Select Committee, which aroused a good deal of public interest and sympathy, stated, among other things, that without being able to assign an exact meaning to sweating, the evils known by that name were: (1) an unduly low rate of wages; (2) excessive hours of labour; (3) an unsanitary state of the houses in which work was carried on.

The situation with regard to low wages was summed up by the Select Committee as follows:

It may be said that the inefficiency of the workers, early marriages, and the tendency of the residuum of the population in large towns to form a helpless community, together with a low standard of life and the excessive supply of unskilled labour, are the chief factors in producing sweating. Moreover, a large supply of cheap female labour is available by the fact that married women working at unskilled labour in their homes, in the intervals between attending to their domestic duties, and not wholly supporting themselves, can afford to work at what would be starvation wages to unmarried women. Such being the conditions of the labour market, abundant materials exist to supply the unscrupulous employer with his wretched dependent workers.1

1 Fifth Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System (1890), p. cxxxv.

After the publication of the report, an Anti-Sweating League was formed with the purpose of securing the parliamentary enactment of a minimum wage for workers in sweated industries and trades. Prior to 1906 several unsuccessful attempts were made to prevail upon the Unionist party to sponsor some form of minimum wage bill.

On February 21, 1908, Mr. George Toulmin introduced in the House of Commons a bill designed to establish wages boards with power to fix the minimum wage for workers in certain scheduled trades, the Home Secretary having power to add to the schedule. The Boards would be composed of representatives of employers and employed in equal numbers, with a chairman chosen by the members or nominated by the Home Secretary. Payment of the minimum wage would be enforced through the factory inspectors, the payment of less being punished by imprisonment. Mr. Toulmin gave some pitiable instances of underpayment and stated that a similar law worked well in Australia. The Bill was opposed by many Unionists, including Sir F. Banbury, as the thin end of the Socialistic wedge, but it was accepted in principle by several Unionists and Tariff Reformers, including Mr. Lyttelton, and also by Mr. Herbert Gladstone, the Home Secretary, whose suggestion that it be referred to the Select Committee on Home Work, was adopted.

Early in 1909 two attempts, independent of the Government, were made to deal with the problem of sweating: Mr. H. H. Marks, a Unionist and Protectionist, unsuccessfully moved on March 23 for leave to bring in a bill providing that when a minimum rate of wages in any trade had been established by law or custom, it should be protected from the competition of goods produced abroad by sweated or lower-paid labour; and Mr. Hills, another Unionist, moved the second reading of a bill on March 26 to create wages boards of employers and employed to fix a minimum wage for tailoring, dressmaking, shirtmaking and certain other trades, to be designated by the Home Secretary. The debate on this Bill