85, be recovered by deductions from the workman's wages, notwithstanding the provisions of any Act to the contrary.

The Hosiery Trade. This is the only trade which now has the benefit of a special Truck Act of its own. The Hosiery Manufacture (Wages) Act, 1874, begins by reciting that a custom has prevailed among the employers of artificers in the hosiery manufacture of letting out frames and machinery to the artificers employed by them, and that it is desirable to prohibit such letting of frames and machinery, and the stoppage of wages for frame rents and charges in the hosiery manufacture. It then proceeds to enact (by Section 1) that in all contracts for wages the full and entire amount of all wages, the earnings of labour in the hosiery manufacture, shall be actually and positively made payable in net, in the current coin of the realm, and not otherwise, without any deduction or stoppage of any description whatever, save and except for bad and disputed workmanship.

By Section 2 all contracts to stop wages, and all contracts for frame rents and charges, between employers and artificers, are declared illegal, null, and void.

By Section 3 if any employer bargains to deduct, or deducts, directly or indirectly, from the wages of any artificer in his employ any part of such wages for frame rent and standing or other charges, or refuses or neglects to pay the same or any part thereof in 'the current coin of the realm,' he shall forfeit a sum of £5 for every offence, to be recovered by the said artificer or any other person suing for the same in the County Court in the district where the offence is committed, with full costs of suit.

Section 4 penalises the artificer who allows a frame or machine entrusted to him by his employer to be worked, used, or employed, without the consent in writing of such employer, in the manufacture of any goods or articles whatever for any other person.

Under Section 5 no action, suit, or set off between employer and artificer is to be allowed for any deduction or stoppage of wages, nor for any contract declared illegal by the Act.

Pending Legislation.—In 1906 a departmental Com

mittee of the Home Office was appointed to consider the working of the Truck Acts, and its Report issued in 1908 (Cd. 4442) contains much valuable information. The main part of the Report is concerned with the working of the Act of 1896 and of the exceptions to the Act of 1831. The Committee presented a majority and minority report. The majority report consisted of thirty-two recommendations, of which the following seem the most important: (a) That the whole law on the subject of Truck and Fines and Deductions should be consolidated with the amendments indicated; (b) that the Truck Acts should be extended to outworkers; (c) that fines should be totally abolished in the case of young persons of sixteen and under in all employments; (d) that the maximum fine or accumulation of fines in any one week permissible by law should not exceed 5 per cent of the wages of the workman for the week; (e) that the deduction for or payment of a fine should be made only in the week in which it is imposed, and that no claim for arrears of fines should lie ;

that employers who maintain the system of fining should furnish to the district inspector of mines and factories, as the case may be, a copy of the fine-agreement, and, when required, a return of the fines imposed on their employees; (g) that where it is shown that a bonus is liable to be withheld, as a punishment for unpunctuality, breaches of discipline, etc., the Court should have power, after considering all the circumstances of the case, to decide whether a bonus is used by the employer as a means of evading the requirements of the Statute, and in the event of its deciding that it is so used to convict the employer; (h) that in respect of deductions for bad or negligent work, etc., Section 2 of the Act of 1896 should be repealed, and the matter be left to be regulated under the provisions suggested as to fines and the ordinary Common Law rights of the parties; (i) that in respect of materials, no charge should be allowed in respect of materials, such as glue, thread, paste, twine, etc., which go into the substance of the fabric or product; (k) that in respect of the use of tools (as distinguished from the sale of tools by the master to the worker), machinery, standing room, light, heat, etc., no charges should be allowed, the alteration of

conditions thus produced being left to find its economic adjustment in wages rates, and the employer to have power to sue for any loss occasioned to him by the misapplication or loss of tools, etc.; (1) that in respect of rent no deductions should be allowed, the matter being left to be dealt with by free contract, entirely separate from the contract of employment.

The minority report accepted recommendations (b), (i), (k), (l), but could not concur in the maintenance either of the system of fines or the system (under the title of fines) of deductions for bad work, etc.

A Consolidating and Amending Act, based on the Report of the Departmental Committee, was promised for the 1914 Parliamentary Session, but the Bill was not even introduced.

CHAPTER VII

MINIMUM WAGE LEGISLATION

THE English law on this subject is contained in two Acts of Parliament, viz. the Trade Boards Act, 1909, and the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act, 1912. These two Acts have certain features in common, but these lie chiefly on the surface. In principle, and as actually administered, they present great differences. The Trade Boards Act has for its object the prevention of sweating in trades or branches of a trade in which the prevailing rate of wages is exceptionally low, as compared with that in other employments. The Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act does not deal with a trade in which the rate of wages is exceptionally low, but with one in which the conditions of the underground workers are exceptional in other ways.

The term 'sweating' is not itself a legal term in the United Kingdom, nor is there any use in actual legislation of the phrase, ' a living wage,' or of any equivalent phrase. It is not within the scope of this book to discuss minimum wage legislation in general, and readers who are interested in comparative legislation on this subject should consult Minimum Wage Legislation by Miss Andrews, a reprint from Appendix III. of the Third Report of the New York State Factory Investigating Commission. It may, however, be helpful to point out that the British Acts have no such restrictive clause as the following enactment, which is taken from the Minimum Wage Law of Victoria: "Where any determination made by a Special (Wages) Board is being dealt with by the Court (of Industrial Appeals), such Court shall consider

whether the determination appealed against has had or may have the effect of prejudicing the progress, maintenance of, or scope of employment in the trade or industry affected by any such price or rate (of wages); and if of opinion that it has had or may have such effect, the Court shall make such alterations as in its opinion may be necessary to remove or prevent such effect, and at the same time to secure a living wage to the employés in such trade or industry who are affected by such determination." The points here raised would naturally receive consideration by an English Trade Board, and by the Board of Trade (which has certain powers of delay), but such consideration is not expressly made part of their legal duties.

The Trade Boards Act raises many more questions than the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act, and will be described and discussed in some detail. The latter Act can then be dealt with more shortly.

Scope of the Trade Boards Act.-The 1st Section of the Act makes it apply to the trades specified in the Schedule to the Act, and to any other trades to which it has been applied by provisional order of the Board of Trade. The trades or branches of trade capable of inclusion by provisional order are those as to which the Board of Trade is satisfied that the rate of wages prevailing therein is exceptionally low as compared with that in other employments. The procedure by provisional order is described on pp. 21-22.

By inference the trades to which the Act originally applies without provisional order are trades in which the prevailing rates of wages were exceptionally low. They are as follows:

(1) Ready-made and wholesale bespoke tailoring, and any other branch of tailoring in which the Board of Trade consider that the system of manufacture is generally similar to that prevailing in the wholesale trade.

(2) The making of boxes or parts thereof made wholly or partially of paper, cardboard, chip, or similar material. (3) Machine-made lace and net-finishing and mending or darning operations of lace-curtain finishing.

(4) Hammered and dollied or tommied chain-making.