Part 10 (1/2)

Protection of holidays has to take special measures to meet these four special ends.

In the first place holidays must be general, for the whole population, in order to allow of instruction in common, and general social intercourse. For this reason even the most ”free-thinking” friend of holiday rest will be willing to grant it in the form of Sunday rest and festival days, and will allow it to be so called; in France and Belgium only, as appears from the reports of the Berlin Conference, do difficulties lie in the way of allowing protection of holidays to take the form of protection of Sundays and festival days.

The second end subserved by protection of holidays will be to ensure that only the absolutely necessary amount of work shall be performed on Sundays in those industries in which there is only a conditional possibility of devoting the Sunday to recreation, family life, and social intercourse, especially in carrying trades, employment in places of amus.e.m.e.nt and in public houses, in professional business, personal service, and the like, also in all labours which are socially indispensable. We shall return to this question in Chapter VII.

(exceptions to protective legislation). The question now arises whether the religious protection of holidays does not already indirectly serve all the purposes of the necessary weekly rest for labour. This question must be answered in the negative. It is true that this does effect something which Labour Protection as such cannot effect, in that it extends beyond the workers and enforces rest on the employers also and their families. But it does not ensure to the workers themselves the complete protection necessary, and it does not fulfil all the purposes of protection of holidays.

The actual condition of affairs in Germany is as follows, according to the ”systematic survey of existing legal and police regulations of employment on Sundays and festivals” (Imperial Act of 1885-6). In one part of Germany the police protection of the Sunday rest is in effect only protection of religious wors.h.i.+p. In another group of districts, the suspension during the entire Sunday of all noisy work carried on in public places is enforced, but within industrial establishments noisy work is not forbidden. A third group of rules lays down the principle that Sundays and festivals shall be devoted not only to religious wors.h.i.+p and sacred gatherings, but also to rest from labour and business.

The rules contained in this group apply especially to factory labour, but in many cases also to handicraft and various kinds of trading business, without regard to the question whether the work carried on in such business is noisy or disturbing to the public, exceptions being granted in certain defined cases. This third group of rules is in force in the provinces of Posen, Silesia, Saxony, the Rhine Provinces, Westphalia, the former Duchy of Na.s.sau, and in the governmental district of Stettin, but in all these only with respect to factory work; also in the former Electorate of Hesse, the Bishopric of Fulda, the province of Hesse-Homburg, and in the town of Ca.s.sel; in Saxony, Wurtemburg, Mecklenburg Schwerin, Mecklenburg Strelitz, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Anhalt, Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, the old and the new Duchy of Reuss and Alsace-Lorraine.

A supplementary statistical inquiry into the extent of Sunday work in Prussia (not including districts whose official records could not be consulted) shows that Sunday work is carried on:--

_In wholesale industries_: in 16 governmental districts, by 49.4% of the works, and by 29.8% of the workers.

_In handicraft business_: in 15 governmental districts, by 47.1% of the works, and by 41.8% of the workers.

_In trading and carrying industries_: in 29 governmental districts, by 77.6% of the employers or companies, and by 57.8% of the workers.

Hence there can be no doubt as to the necessity in Germany for extraordinary State protection of the Sunday holiday, by means of protective legislation, applying also to handicraft business and to a part of trading and carrying industry.

About two-thirds of the employers and three-fourths of the workmen have declared themselves for the practicability of the prohibition of Sunday work, nearly all with the proviso that exceptions shall be permitted.

The duration of holiday rest practically can in most cases be fixed from Sat.u.r.day evening till early on Monday morning.

The _von Berlepsch_ Bill proposes to enforce legally only 24 hours; the Auer Motion demands 36 hours, and when Sundays and festivals fall on consecutive days, 60 hours.

The shortening of work hours on Sat.u.r.day evening in factory industries and in industries carried on in workshops of a like nature to factories is a very necessary addition to Sunday rest; provision must also be made to prevent the work from beginning too early on Monday morning if Sunday protection is to attain its object. The shortening of work hours on Sat.u.r.day evening is especially necessary to women workers to enable them to fulfil their household duties, and it is necessary to all workers to enable them to make their purchases. England and Switzerland grant protection of the Sat.u.r.day evening holiday.

Legislation will not have completed its work of extending protection of holidays, even when the limits have been widened to admit trading business. Further special regulations must be made for the business of transport and traffic. Switzerland has already set to work in this direction. In Germany, in consequence of the nationalisation of all important means of traffic, much can be done if the authorities are willing, merely by way of administration.

We cannot lay too much stress on this question of the regulation and preservation of holiday time by means both of legislative and administrative action. For its actual enforcement it is true the co-operation of the local police magistrates is necessary, but the regulation of this protection ought not to be left in their hands. It must be carried on in a uniform system and with the sanction of the higher administrative bodies. We shall return to this question also in Chapter VII.

CHAPTER VI.

ENACTMENTS PROHIBITING CERTAIN KINDS OF WORK.

Besides the mere protective limitations of working time and of the intervals of work, we have also the actual prohibition of certain kinds of work. Freedom in the pursuit of work being the right of all, and work being a moral and social necessity to the whole population, prohibition of work must evidently be restricted to certain extreme cases.

Such prohibition is however indispensable, for there are certain ways of employing labour which involve actual injury to the whole working force of the nation, and actual neglect of the cares necessary to the rearing and bringing up of its citizens, and there are certain kinds of necessary social tasks, other than industrial, the performance of which, in the special circ.u.mstances of industrial employment, require to be watched over and ensured by special means in a manner which would be wholly unnecessary among other sections of the community. And thus we find a series of prohibitions of work, partly in force already, and partly in course of development.

1. _Prohibition of child-labour._

This is prohibition of the employment of children under 12 years of age (13 in the south), of children under 10 years of age, in factory work (see Book I.). Prohibition of child-labour must not be confused with restriction of child-labour (see Book I.), viz. restriction of the labour of children of 12 to 14 years of age, in the south of 10 to 12 years of age. It does not involve prohibition of _all_ employment of children under 12 years of age, such as help in the household or in the fields.

The prohibition of child-labour within certain limits is necessary in the interests of the whole nation, for the physical and intellectual preservation of the rising generation, hence it is to the interest also of the employers of industrial labour themselves.