CHAPTER VII. EXCEPTIONS TO PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION.
All prohibition of employment and limitations of employment are apparently opposed to the interests of the employers. As long as they are kept within just limits, however, this will not be true generally or in the long run.
The just claims of Capital may be protected by admitting carefully regulated exceptions; but wherever and in so far as employment is opposed to the higher personal interests of the whole population, Capital must submit to the restrictions.
As regards the exceptions, these are in part regular or ordinary, in part irregular or extraordinary. We find examples of both kinds alike in the legislation for restricting the time of working and in legislation for protecting intervals of rest.
Ordinary exceptions to prohibition of employment consist mainly of permission by legal enactment in certain specified kinds of industrial work, of a class of labour which is elsewhere prohibited, e.g. night work for women and young workers. The greater number of cases of prohibition of employment appear in the inverse form of exceptions to permission of employment.
Ordinary exceptions to restriction of employment are provided for partly by legislation, partly by administration, i.e. partly by the Government, partly by the district or local officials.
Wherever in the interests of industry it is impossible to enforce the ordinary protection of times of labour and hours of rest, this is made good to the labourer by the introduction of several (two, three, or four) shifts taking night and day by turns, so that an uninterrupted continuance of work may be possible without any prolonged resting time either in the day or in the night; moreover, the loss of Sunday rest can be compensated by a holiday during the week.
Extraordinary exceptions occur chiefly in the following cases: (a) where work is necessary in consequence of an interruption to the regular course of business by some natural event or misfortune; (b) where work is necessary in order to guard against accidents and dangers; (c) where work is necessary in order to meet exceptional pressure of business.