Whether or not the law can be made sufficiently elastic to allow of greater freedom with regard to period of employment, overtime, and nightwork, raises difficult questions. No doubt it would be an advantage both to employées and employers, if the law could be made so elastic, but the difficulty of effective inspection would be so great as to outweigh any possible advantage. The early history of factory legislation and its working shows clearly that the intention of the Act was defeated because employers could so easily evade its clauses. At present it is known to a factory inspector that a factory that opens at 6 always opens at 6 and closes at 6, unless notice has been given that overtime is being worked; if, however, an employer were free to open his factory at 6 or 7 or 8, as occasion demanded, and close accordingly, the difficulty of administration would obviously be greatly increased.
The same point arises with regard to nightworkers. It is quite impossible to know among a staff of nightworkers, who has been working all day and who are bonâ fide job hands. Such cases as the following, which was the cause of a prosecution, would occur far more frequently.
"Twenty-four girls who were employed at a neighbouring printing and bookbinding firm, worked for twelve hours at that firm on Friday, November 20th. They then went straight to the Carlyle Press, and worked all night, going back to their regular work at the other firm at 8 the next morning. The forewoman employed by the latter firm said that she did not know these girls had been working all day, or she would not have admitted them."[75]
[75] Printers' Register, January 12th, 1892.
It must be remembered that so far as the class of job hands is concerned, they owe their present position in a large measure to factory legislation. By utilising them, the employer has been able to meet a sudden press of work, and yet to comply with the provisions of the law, so that, without the legislation of which they now complain, many of them would not have found employment. Moreover, job hands are not numerous when compared with regular workers, and the provisions in the Factory Acts which seem to bear hardly on casual labour have rightly been passed in the interest of the permanent staff. To accede to the demand for greater elasticity is to suppose a higher code of morals on the part both of employers and of employed than experience justifies, and it would also render necessary a far more elaborate and irritating system of inspection than at present exists. The efficiency of modern factory industry depends very greatly upon automatic working—upon its standardisation of conditions, and the existing factory law with its inelastic provisions is, in reality, a great aid in maintaining those conditions of efficiency. Now and again an employer complains of some hard experience, and forgets that a departure from rigid rule would destroy the certainty which he feels that the law is treating him exactly as it is his competitors. Such a feeling of security is essential to business enterprise.
[CHAPTER VII.] WOMEN AND MACHINERY.
There is a general opinion amongst the women workers themselves that the introduction of machinery has ruined these trades for them. But we have found that certain opinions prevail, not because they have stood the test of investigation, but because they are passed round, and have never been subjected to enquiry. We have already referred to the question in a general way.[76]
[76] P. 48.