MEMORANDUM.

The object of the Bill is to carry out, with modifications, the recommendations of the National Industrial Conference, 1919, and of the Draft Convention concerning hours of work, adopted at Washington by the International Labour Conference, 1919.

A

BILL

TO

Limit the Hours of Employment.

E it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, 5 as follows:

A.D. 1924.

1. Subject as hereinafter provided, the number of Statutory working hours (exclusive of recognised intervals for meals) working in any week (hereinafter referred to as the statutory week. working week) shall not, in the case of any person to 10 whom this Act applies, exceed forty-eight, and no person may, in any week, be employed in excess of the statutory working week.

ceptions.

2. Where an agreement has been arrived at between Power to any organisations of employers and workers in any class vary normal 15 of employment, or a recommendation has been made hours or grant exby a joint industrial council, conciliation board, or trade board, that the working hours in any week should be less than forty-eight, or that the conditions in that class of employment in regard to the hours worked, 20 the methods of computing such hours, the Sunday restday, or the weekly half-holiday, should be more favourable than those which would prevail if this section were not in force, either during the whole or a particular part of the year, the Minister may, on application being made 25 by or on behalf of such organisations, or council or board, as the case may be (subject to such conditions as he may think fit to impose), make a special order prescribing a less number of hours than forty-eight as the statutory working week in respect of the class of 30 employment in question.