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FOREIGN LABOR LEGISLATION IN 1911

URING the year 1911, laws relating to labor have been passed in almost every European country. But in a majority of cases those laws are un

important.

In Great Britain the labor measures enacted in the last session of Parliament were more numerous than in any other country, and at least one of the new British Laws is of a far reaching nature-the national insurance act, providing for insurance against sickness, invalidity and unemployment. It will come into force between July 15, 1912, and January 1, 1913. Sickness and invalidity insurance will extend to all persons under contract of service, express or implied, save those who earn by other than manual labor $800 a year and upwards. The means for providing sickness and invalidity benefits and defraying the expenses of the administration of those benefits will be derived from contributions of the insured persons, their employers and the State. In the case of persons over 21 years of age whose daily wage exceed 60 cents, a man pays 8 cents and his employer 6 cents per week, a woman 6 cents and her employer 6 cents per week; the State contributes 4 cents per person, but the State contribution is not paid in respect of persons of foreign nationality. Where a contributor of either sex is over 21 years of age and the wages do not exceed 60 cents a day, and the employee is not provided with board and lodging, the above scale does not hold good, but the contribution of the employee is reduced proportionate to the wages, while the contributions of the employer and of the State

increase. The standard rate of benefit is $2.50 per week for men and $1.75 per week for women during the first 26 weeks of disablement caused by sickness, and $1.25 per week thereafter. The other minimum benefits to which an insured person is entitled are medical benefit, sanatorium benefit and maternity benefit. The "approved societies"-which will be the chief agencies to administer sickness and invalidity insurance-may provide certain additional benefits. Any trade union or friendly society having a membership of 5,000 or more can receive the approval of the insurance commissioners. The Board of Insurance Commissioners constitute the highest authority for the purposes of sickness and invalidity insurance; the members of this board are appointed by the Treasury.

Compulsory unemployment insurance is confined to building trades workmen; machinists and iron founders; ship builders; carriage and wagon builders, and mill sawyers. The standard rate of contribution is 10 cents per person per week; the employer who is responsible for the payment of contributions is entitled to deduct half of this amount from the employee's wage. The State contributes a sum equal to one-third of the total contributions received from employers and workmen. Every workman who has been employed in an insured trade, and in whose case the statutory conditions are fulfilled, is entitled to receive unemployment benefit at the rate of $1.75 per week, but during not more than 15 weeks in any period of 12 months, and no workman shall receive more unemployment benefit than in

the proportion of one week's benefit for every five contributions paid by him.

In addition, the Insurance Act, the Coal Mines Act, the Shop Act, and an amendment to the old age pensions act have been passed.

In Germany the Imperial Insurance Code of July 19, 1911, consolidates and amends the various laws previously in force in regard to work people's insurance against accident, sickness, old age and infirmity. An introductory act contains regulations of a temporary nature.

A law of December 20, 1911, deals with the employment of out-workers. It was framed for the purpose of restricting certain evils incidental to the system of production under which work is given out to be done by persons who perform it either in their own homes or on other premises over which the giver-out of the work exercises no control. In rooms where work is given out to be done by outworkers there must be displayed a list of the prices to be paid for each class of work. Persons giving work to out-workers are required to supply each such worker with a wages-book showing the nature of each piece of work done and the wage or price for each. The act gives extensive powers to the local police authorities. Thus, at the request of the factory inspectors, the police authority may give instructions to individual employers in regard to measures to be taken in order to avoid undue loss of time on the part of the outworkers in obtaining and returning their work. Where danger to life, health or morals exists the police may, at the request of the factory inspectors, require that workrooms, machinery and tools be so maintained as to ensure to outworkers the ut

most possible protection. The police are empowered to require the observance of special precautions in workrooms where lads under 18 and women are employed as outworkers. They are further empowered to raise the age limit for the employment of children. Employers giving out work to be done off their premises must keep a list of outworkers employed and the address at which the work is performed. The Federal Council (the upper house of the Federal Parliament) has power to establish trade boards, the duties of which consist in making reports to the State and local authorities on the industrial conditions prevalent in their respective trades and districts, in discussing schemes for improving such conditions; in collecting information as to the earnings of outworkers; in encouraging wage agreements, etc.

In Austria a law of February 21, 1911, prohibits the employment of women and girls between the hours of 6 p. m. and 5 a. m. in any industrial establishment in which ten or more work people are employed. Every woman or girl must be granted not less than eleven consecutive hours of rest at night. In cases of accidents, etc., exemptions may be given in respect of women over 18 years.

A similar law prohibiting night work of women in industrial establishments with more than ten work people was enacted in Belgium. A new law relating to mines and quarries in this country was passed on April 6. Among other provisions, the law requires that underground labor of all females and of males under 14 years of age shall be abolished. Certain measures are to be adopted relative to the health and safety of workers in and about mines and quarries. The law further specifies that shower baths shall be placed at the disposal of the work people. A law of June 5, 1911, requires that all work people employed in coal mines in Belgium whose age is less than 60 years must be insured against old-age. The contributions are to be paid by the insured; they cease when they have amounted to a sum sufficient to purchase a pension of 70 dollars per annum at the age of 60.

en.

In the Netherlands a new law regulates the employment of young persons and womNo child under the age of 13 may be employed in an industrial establishment, nor may any person over that age who is not exempt from school attendance. Hitherto the minimum age of admission has been 12 years. In factories, workshops, etc., the hours of labor of young persons under 17 years and of women are not to exceed 10 per day or 58 per week, nor may these workers be employed before 6 a. m. or 7 p. m. Women who have household duties to perform and who make a declaration to that effect may not be employed after 1 p. m. on Saturdays. Where the daily working time of a young person or woman exceeds 6 hours, it must be broken by an interval, (a) of at least one hour where the work ceases at 6 p. m. or earlier, or (b) of at least 1% hours where work is carried on after 6 p. m.

In Spain a new housing law of June 15, 1911, contains provisions for the erection and improvement of cheap dwellings.

The Japanese factory law of March 28, 1911, regulates the employment of young persons and women, sanitary conditions, the payment of compensation where injury or illness arises out of the conditions of employment and it makes provision for a system of factory inspection.

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"NATURAL AND HUMAN INSTITUTIONS"

By JOSE GROS.

HE New York Times, in a long editorial, is very much troubled at the idea of the working people asking for "a living wage." The Times considers that demand "A moral proposition at war with economics, unless the laborer is willing to produce more than he receives, since otherwise there will be no fund from which he may receive anything." Then it adds "The original condemnation to work contains no promise of a living wage unless it is extorted from the forces of nature, which are more pitiless than any human institution." In the same editorial the Times mentions the fact that an imporant preacher of the Catholic church has declared himself in favor of "the living wage for the workers, for their comfortable life, because otherwise they are the victims of force and injustice." The Times refuses to accept that dictum.

Please notice that "The Times," in consonance with the social philosophy or economics of past ages, considers that a living wage is impossible until the worker is willing to produce more than he receives. Yet, the worker is the only one who can produce wealth, and seldom is he allowed to retain more than 40 per cent of what he is allowed to produce.

How these wise men of ours talk at random when they try to explain to each other, and to the rest of us, the idiotic problems of the stupid civilization we all seem satisfied with. The Times talks as most of those who have monopolized the education of all ages and generations.

Why not commence at the beginning when we try to approach the absurdities we ourselves create? Human development can commence only in our relations with this planet of ours. Why so? Because it contains, in forms crude, the elements through which alone we can obtain what we call wealth. Stop human labor applied to land, that is, let all the land remain unused,

and, who shall have wealth, who shall be able even to live?

Now take the word "wage," the living or the dying wage, or any wage between the two, if you like. The word implies industrial slavery through the monopolization of natural resources, sanctioned by human laws in defiance of all natural and divine law. Now we have cleared the brains from the accumulated cob-webs, and fatuities, and nonsense of centuries of "progress"the progress of despair and sin.

Yes, nature is cruel, as "The Times" has said, as we educated men have been saying through the march of history. Nature is cruel because men have always been cruel-against nature, and against each other. Nature is cruel because we see fit to live in opposition to all the beneficent and wise laws of nature. Nature has no laws of monopoly. It has only laws of equal rights. It is we, men, who have evolved cruelties through the instrumentality of monopoly laws. Nature requires honest and intelligent labor. It never gives wealth to the monopolist. It gives all wealth to the worker in relation to his intelligent work.

Look now at the ludicrous fact of people having to ask for a living wage. A living wage for honest labor without which we all would starve! And this is after centuries of what we call "progress." The progress in question must belong to the infernal regions, if such regions can be found anywhere outside of the earth. Who is entitled to live, and live well, if the wealth producer is not? And who is entitled to have wealth, if the wealth producer is not?

It has never been proved that the wage system is indispensable to healthy progress. To begin with, progress has never been healthy. It has always been sickly, sinful, unjust to all men, unjust even to those we give the power to control the destinies of humanity. Why not let God control our destinies?

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HE New York Court of Appeals held the act for the compulsory compensation of workmen employed in extra hazardous industries unconstitutional because it amounted to taking the property of employers "without due process of law."

The London Times, commenting on the decision, says "it is like going back to a world which has for us as good as passed away."

The New York judges, it says, are imbued with the sentiments of English judges of the early Victorian era. The older idea of freedom of contract in the relations of capital and labor now "has its special home some would say its last refuge in America."

Take a specific case: Last week a container filled with molten steel gave way in a Pennslyvania steel plant. Several men were killed and a number badly hurt. The accident was nobody's fault. It was one of perilous possibilities of the business.

If it had happened in England the employer would have paid the compensation prescribed by law to the injured and the families of the dead. Compensation is one of the hazards of his business which the English steelmaker must assume.

It is one of the elements in the cost of his product. But in Pennsylvania, as in other American states, the worker is made to assume the hazard. For him there is no compensation, and when a law is passed, as in New York, to give it to him, the courts hold it unconstitutional.

They can see only the property rights of the employer.

American allegiance to economic theories and legal rules which England has discarded is wavering.

Judges who have grown up in a more wholesome atmosphere are beginning to cut loose from them.

In the meantime there is confusion and bewilderment. As the Times says, in discussing the opinions of several American courts, "The various decisions upon the ever-growing mass of labor legislation are not reconcilable; to the layman they appear capricious, and the lawyer must own that many of them rest upon refined and obscure reasoning. Legislatures must be often quite uncertain whether their laws will be torn up by the courts."

That disagreeable uncertainty will last until we shall have amended our constitutions or put upon the bench modern and broader minded judges.-Chicago Tribune.

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