The labor inspectors not only have charge of the execution of the law of 1889, but also of the laws on the payment of wages, the regulations of factories, etc. They make an annual report, and their reports have been published regularly since 1895, and from them information must be secured concerning the law’s execution, even though the reports are often incomplete and unmethodical.
I will refer here particularly to the last report published, that of 1900:
The law of 1889 was not applied seriously until 1895, following the reorganization of inspection. Since then progress has been made, but it is incontestable that in several of its provisions the law is not applied as it should be in all parts of the country. The press and Parliament[[22]] have several times pointed out this unsatisfactory situation.
The inspectors certainly perform their complicated and delicate work with fidelity. But they are too few in number to fitly discharge their numerous duties. The opposition or the ill-will of the manufacturers is still too frequent; and when the inspectors wish to apply the law and enforce its respect, they do not always find the support which they should have among their superior officers.
In certain industries, e. g., glass and hand-made brick, which employ a considerable number of children, the application of the law is particularly to be desired. It is true these industries have peculiar economic characteristics. There has already been introduced a regulation less severe for the brick-works, and certain mitigations are being asked for the glass industry.
Too many children are still permitted to labor before having reached the legal age of twelve years. The inspector for the district of East Flanders (Ghent) announces that the number of children under twelve found in the industrial establishments was particularly numerous in 1900. He found seventy-five such in his district in ten hosiery factories, two tobacco factories, one lace-making school, one mechanical weaving mill, one jute mill, one sugar refinery. (Report 1900, pp. 88, 89.) In some other districts the situation is better, according to this report, but almost everywhere violations are still observed, as well as the complicity of parents. “Families in need often make all efforts and use all sorts of devices to cause their children under age to be admitted to labor.” (Report, p. 143.) It happens that the regulation note-books requiring the entry of the child’s age contain false declarations, or they are delivered to the children under age by the civic authority. (Report, p. 127.) Moreover, these note-books are often missing, and the registries which the masters should keep do not always come up to the demands of the law.
A royal decree of December 26, 1892, as we have said, organizes the system of half-time—six hours of work—for children of twelve to thirteen, employed in the textile industries other than the woolen industry. This system has not given good results. The manufacturers prefer to do without children under thirteen, rather than adopt this special organization. In the works which have adopted this system, the child does not benefit from it at all. “After having worked six hours in the morning at the spinning or weaving of linen, the parents send that child to complete the day’s labor at a chairmaker’s, at picking rags, or in a preserved fruit and vegetable factory, where the law does not protect him any longer within the same limits. Moreover, if he does not work in the afternoon, he roams around the streets and becomes vicious, the school refusing to admit as pupil a child who can only attend half the time.” (Report, p. 65.)
This confirms what was said above, concerning the defect in the Belgian law, which contains no regulations for the instruction of children whose labor it limits.
On several occasions the labor inspectors have called attention to the necessity of extending the application of the law to the workshops which are not included, and especially to the clothing and millinery shops, which freely employ numerous children. They ask, in every case, that the legislator should state more clearly and precisely than the actual interpretation of the law does, the distinction between the workshops subject to the law and those that are not. (Report, pp. 3, 66.)
Finally, the inspectors think that it is necessary to revise and to simplify the royal decrees, the complications of which give rise to many difficulties. This revision is, by the way, at present under consideration. (Report, pp. 3, 44.)