With the exception of the regulations outlined above, there is no limit to the number of hours during which young persons may legally be employed.
Children.—The most important Acts regulating the hours of employment for children are the Acts which enforce attendance at school. They limit hours, not by fixing a maximum number of hours during which children may be employed, but by pursuing the far more effective plan of seeing that the children are in school, and therefore not in the workshop, during part of the day.
Taken together, these Acts provide that children shall be at school, and consequently not at work, at all times when the schools are opened until the age of twelve is reached. There is one exception to this regulation: children may, under a special by-law of the local education authority, be employed in agriculture at the age of eleven, provided that they attend school 250 times a year up to the age of thirteen. This exception is of small importance, as “the number of children who are exempt under this special by-law seems to be very small, not exceeding apparently 400 in the whole country.”[62]
Between the ages of twelve and fourteen attendance is compulsory, subject to a complex scheme of partial or total exemptions, depending on the by-laws of the local education authority. It rests, for instance, with each local education authority to decide “whether, as regards children between twelve and fourteen, they will grant full-time or half-time exemption, or both, and upon what conditions of attendance or attainments, always subject, of course, to the fact that the by-laws must be approved by the Board of Education, and must not clash with any Act regulating the employment of children.”[63] For all practical purposes, it is possible for the local education authority, if they think fit, to insist on such a standard of attainment to be reached before exemption is allowed that, with a few exceptions, relatively insignificant, children are compelled to attend school until the age of fourteen. It is important to remember that these Acts limit the employment of children only during times when the schools are opened. As a general rule, the hours of attendance are between 9 and 12 in the morning, and between 2 and 4.30 in the afternoon; while the schools are open on five days a week during some forty-four weeks in the year. During holidays, and on Saturdays and Sundays, so far as these Acts are concerned, there is no limit to the numbers of hours a child may work.
A further limit is put on the hours children may work by the Employment of Children Act, 1903. A child under fourteen may not be employed between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. This provision is subject to variation by local by-laws.[64] Local by-laws may prescribe for children under fourteen: (a) The hours between which employment is illegal; (b) the number of daily and weekly hours beyond which employment is illegal; and (c) may permit, subject to conditions, the employment of children in any specified occupation.[65]
Under this Act the by-laws of the London County Council provide that a child liable to attend school shall not be employed on days when the school is open for more than three and a half hours a day, nor—
(a) Between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.;
(b) Before 6.30 a.m. or after 9 p.m.;
and on days when the school is not open—
(a) Before 6.30 a.m. or after 9 p.m.;