There was a very painstaking discussion on Thursday night of
Mr. Matthews's Factories and Workshops Bill, the object of which is to keep the places where associated labour goes on in a wholesome condition, and to secure this, in the case of factories, by more adequate inspection. The Bill also provides for carrying out the law more carefully as regards the limits placed on the employment of women and children. Mr. Matthews favours the half-time system for children,—i.e., that they may spend half their time in school and half in remunerative work,—between the ages of ten and fourteen, so far as they are allowed to be employed at all between those ages. He finds the half-time system more useful to the children, and more effective in developing their intelligence, than spending the whole time in school. The Bill was very favourably received on both sides of the House. Mr. Bryce made a very useful suggestion that competent women should be qualified for the office of sanitary inspectors, where the places to be inspected are those in which women and children work ; and Mr. Mundella was very friendly to the Bill, but attacked the Government for not adopting any of the prin- ciples agreed upon at the Berlin Conference, though here he seems to have been mistaken. The Bill was read a second time without a division.
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