and that similar legislation be introduced at the same time in the foreign-controlled areas.'

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"The Commission made several very different recommendations to the Municipal Council and asked the latter to work to(1.) Make and enforce regulations prohibiting the employment in factories and industrial undertakings of children under 10 years of age, rising to 12 years within four years from the date of the regulations.

..6

(2.) Prohibit the employment of children under 14 years of age for a longer period than twelve hours in any period of twenty-four hours, such period of twelve hours to include a compulsory rest of one hour.

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(3.) Make and enforce regulations under which every child under 14 years of age should be given twenty-four hours continuous rest from work in at least every fourteen days.

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(4.) Prohibit the employment of children under 14 years of age in any dangerous place. It is also recommended. that the council should provide an adequate staff of trained men and women for carrying out the duties of inspection. under the regulations.'

"It will be noted that these recommendations, compared with conditions in Europe, would be lamentable even if carried out. Children to go to work at 10 years of age, to be able to work for twelve hours a day, only to have one day off work in fourteen are recommendations which show what an appalling state of things now exists in China.

In

"It is a curious and ironical commentary on the condition of affairs in China that the Chinese delegate at Geneva in 1924 told the delegates that China had introduced the Eight-Hour Day for children and abolished night work for women and children. The facts are that regulations were issued, but no attempt at all has been made to put them into force. Shanghai, where a certain amount of European pressure, particularly from missionaries, was applied, some ameliorations were made, but the Commission's report, as already mentioned, is the clearest possible proof of what the conditions are in the mills outside the settlement and under Chinese control. I will quote a short passage from a report on Canton to show what really exists in the silk factories. Again I will quote from a consular statement :

It is, of course, the case here, as elsewhere in China, that the earnings of the female and child members of the family are necessary for the maintenance of living, but, in many instances, the worker is not entirely industrialised; in other words, he may work in the factory or workshopsfor example, in the silk filatures-for seven or eight months a year and return to his native village or farm for the remainder. Conditions in the silk filatures are unsatisfactory.

The work is "rush work" from peep of dawn to dusk, and workers, for days together, do not leave the filatures, but work and sleep in the same building.'

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'No strictures can be severe enough for conditions such as those described.

It is said that in the cinnabar mines in Hunan, whole villages of people, men, women and children, are being slowly poisoned as a result of the insanitary conditions of work. The Rockefeller Institute made investigations and found that 81.6 per cent. of the miners in one of the mines were suffering from hook-worm. Recommendations were made with a view to eradicating the infection from the mines, but not a single recommendation was carried into effect, nor has the Government, either then or since, done anything to secure the adoption of any single recommendation. Fourteen and fifteen hours a day are being worked by some workers. Seven days a week of work is quite common, and, although little or no foreign capital is employed, the position of the worker is worse by far than the conditions in Shanghai. In Chefoo there is a large amount of silk spinning, and in some of the preparatory processes ten, eleven, twelve and even fifteen hours is worked according to the skill and quickness of the worker. The poor worker who cannot get through his work-there is a certain quantity given-and so cannot find time to sleep, is simply dismissed. Workers' average wages are about 14s. a month, and are only that after an advance which has been recently given. I will simply quote the report to show what the conditions are and leave the consul's language to speak for itself. :

"The sanitary conditions in silk factories are extremely bad. In order to protect the silk the atmosphere must be kept warm and moist. Windows and doors are therefore continually closed, and the air is constantly loaded with odorous dust and germs. The workers almost universally wear no clothing above the waist. They can readily be recognised in any crowd by their sallow complexions. All workers must live in the factories. Those completing their work before night are free to go where they please, but they must return by dark. This means that only a few men get out of the factories except on special occasions. When they finish their work at night, they pull out their roll of bedding and sleep on the floor, on stray boards laid across benches, or on the ground in the courtyard. They rise at the break of day, roll up their blankets and stack them in some corner until night. Thus they work, eat and sleep in the same quarters.'

Where factory life does not exist, the guild system and apprenticeship are almost universal. The apprentices are said to be practically the property of the manager and absolute autocracy reigns generally in the industry. Again, in order not

to express any personal views, I will simply quote what the conditions are :—

"In all lines of industry, the employers exercise absolute autocratic control, including the right to "hire and fire" at will. Schemes for employees sharing in the management and control of the industries, such as "Shop Committees," "Employees' Representation," or "Workers' Councils," are unknown. There is no regular organisation of work, although there are signs of movements in that direction. The employer deals directly with each employee. Practically no provision is made for health, accident, or unemployment insurance. If the worker is incapacitated for service, or if he is not needed during a period of depression in business, he is discharged. In the hair-net industry during slack times the workers are given shifts of two or three days per week. Strikes are rare and condemned, lockouts are universal and unquestioned. The few attempts to strike have been immediately suppressed by police forces, and the workers compelled to resume their work under existing conditions.'

"I have only to add that the average working day is stated to be thirteen hours, and the ordinary working week is seven days. The condition of affairs may be better imagined than described. In Shanghai child and female labour is extensively used. Children commence work, in some cases, at the age of 5, and the hours of labour are excessively long. Nearly 14 per cent. of the labour employed, so far as statistics can be had, seems to be under the age of 12 years. Nearly 80 per cent. of the child labour is girl labour, and 57 per cent. of the total labour employed seems to be female labour over the age of 12.

*

"The perfectly awful conditions that exist have apparently up to now raised no great indignation in the breasts of the Chinese workers. In fact, so far as consular opinion goes, the Chinese worker is said to be comparatively content with his lot, and considers himself fortunate if he has constant employment. The housing conditions are so bad that the parents prefer to take their small children with them into the relative comfort of the mill. There are no arrangements made to prevent accidents to these children, and the fatalistic Chinese temperament is said not to see any neglect of the elementary principles of humanity on the part of the employers in making no provisions.

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The reports insist that Chinese employers are very reluctant to make any move at all in the nature of improvements, and if the evidence is reliable, it is quite certain that, vile as the conditions are in foreign mills, the Chinese worker in a Chinese mill is still worse off."

In the organisation and control of industry, guilds have from time immemorial played as great a part in China as they did in Europe in the middle ages. The guilds include both masters and

workers, and the control is in the hands of the former. Though strikes have always been a feature of industrial life in China, it is only very recently that there have grown up labour organisations with the express aim of obtaining higher wages from the employers. This movement was largely inspired by the students, who, from the very beginning of the student movement in China, have always allied themselves with labour and have worked with genuine zeal to raise the status of the working man.

The student movement, however, naturally gravitated towards politics, so that what was at first a natural alliance between labour and the ferment of the new ideas of the renaissance ended in the labour movement being entirely subordinated to the attainment of political ends of the most extreme and dangerous character. The Chinese have a genius for combination. Trades unions were rapidly organised, but they turned aside from their natural objectives and made their chief aim "the overthrow of imperialism and militarism and all opposed to the principles of the Kuomintang." Under Bolshevik inspiration, mob violence and other forms of labour terrorism are now regularly employed by the Nationalist party in China in in their political struggles against Great Britain. Unfortunately the trades union was the off-spring rather of the half political, half criminal, secret society than of the trades guild.

It is extremely difficult to give either concise or satisfactory information on the question of wages. The chief difficulty is one that constantly besets one in all questions relating to labour and industry, the absence of reliable statistics. Another great difficulty is the uncertainty and instability of China's currency. The currency of the labourer is the copper cent, the purchasing power of which is steadily declining and which is liable to wild and sudden fluctuations in terms of the silver dollar, which itself is also constantly fluctuating in purchasing power. The fluctuations of the

copper cent are generally local in character and the widest differences in exchange value may exist in different industrial centres. Another complication of a very dangerous character is introduced by the fact that the staple food of the labourer is also subject to wild fluctuations in price. In Western countries the price of bread is comparatively stable and if some catastrophe caused a sudden increase the situation would be remedied by governmental action, such as regulation of prices, food control, doles or prevention of profiteering. In China the Government takes no interest in the subject, except perhaps to issue mandates bewailing the sufferings of the people, well knowing that it is the depredations of the Tuchuns and the taxes they levy on food that are the cause of the evil. In Shanghai the normal price of rice is 8 dollars per picul (18s. per 1333 lb.), and it is estimated that four persons consume one picul of rice per month. In 1925 the price rose to 14-16 dollars per picul and this was one of the principal causes of the labour unrest and the many strikes that took place in Shanghai that year. In the factories of the British-American Tobacco Company the normal wage is calculated on the basis of rice at 8 dollars a picul and additions are made as the price rises above that figure. Many

employers of labour have been driven to adopt a similar method in order to enable their workmen to meet the increases and fluctuations in the cost of living. Under such conditions any accurate statement of rates of wages becomes practically impossible. As an approximation, however, and with all reserve, it may be said that the wages of the lowest grade of unskilled labour, such as wharf coolies, may be about £1 per month; of the lower grades of skilled labour, such as bricklayers, about £2 10s. per month, rising to about £5 per month for the higher grades, such as fitters and mechanics; while the highest of all, such as mill foremen, engineers and shipyard foremen, might earn £10 a month.

The Chinese working man, and his ally, the Chinese student, never aspired to secure more from the employer than an increase in wages. There are also many complaints of bullying by foremen and overseers, which seems to be responsible for a surprising amount of labour unrest, but it is due to the initiative of foreigners-factory owners, missionaries and women's societies-that a movement has been started to procure some improvement in the conditions of labour and that attention was drawn to such questions as hours of labour, prevention of accidents, hygiene, child labour, &c. As foreigners may not reside or own land and buildings in the interior of China, but only at certain specified treaty ports, it was only at those treaty ports that the foreigner came into contact with Chinese labour conditions. In a few of these treaty ports-chiefly, of course, at Shanghai-and in a few other centres in the interior-such as Wusieh and Wuchang-the progress towards a factory system had been much more rapid and the labouring population had been far more completely industrialised than in the rest of China. "Certain mill-owners in Shanghai, prominent among whom were British and Japanese, had for many years made private efforts to regulate child labour, to exclude children from night shifts, to provide for their care and education, &c., but insuperable difficulties in the path of private effort arose in the impossibility of securing general voluntary co-operation among competitors and in the unwillingness of parents to deprive themselves of the earning capacity of their elder children or to go to work unless accompanied by their younger ones." ("China No. 1 (1925)," (Cmd. 2442), p. 19.) These private efforts were supported by British and American philanthropists, and the efforts of such bodies as the National Christian Council and the Young Women's Christian Association culminated in the appointment by the Municipal Council of the International Settlement at Shanghai of the Child Labour Commission and the abortive attempt to pass the Child Labour Byelaw which has been described above. Even now, however, the questions. of child labour and of labour conditions generally, from the humanitarian point of view, arouse no interest among the Chinese. In a despatch dated the 27th August, 1925 (see Annex), the consulgeneral at Shanghai says:

"It is also to be noted that although the plight of the working children of Shanghai has justly excited the pity of foreign sympathisers, and the movement for the amelioration of their