goods are more scattered, but are only met with in large numbers between Paris and Rouen, Lyons and Arles, and St. Jean-de-Losne and Lyons. The service of tugs is important only on the Dordogne below Libourne, the Garonne below Bordeaux, the lower Loire, the Meuse (in the Ardennes and the northern branch of the Canal de l'Est), the Rhone below Lyons, the Saône below St. Jean-de-Losne, and the Seine between Montereau, Paris, Rouen, and Le Havre. It is on this latter river that the tugs are most frequently met with. As for the hauling boats, if we except the government service at the tunnels on the Burgundy, Eastern, Marne-to-Rhine, St. Quentin, and St. Martin canals, they are scarcely used, except on the Yonne between Laroche and Montereau, and on the Seine between Montereau, Paris, Conflans, and Ronen. On the Scarpe and the Deûle these tugs are also used over a part of their course.

Of the 178 proprietors, owning 651 steamboats, 114 own but one boat, and 78 of which are tugs. There are 15 proprietors owning but I passenger boat each.

III. It is well known that the northern, central, eastern, and sonth-eastern systems are by far the most important, the traffic on them amounting to nine-tenths of the total tonnage of the whole interior navigation in France. Besides which, considering the condition of navigation, these four systems form a homogeneous whole, and the boats which perform the service on them rarely leave them, as the dimensions and draught of most of them do not allow of their going up the secondary routes. In placing the various systems according to their importance, the foreign boats have been left out of count. As was shown above, these latter frequent almost exclusively the four principal systems, and especially the northern and eastern, in the departments near the frontier. 10,082 French boats out of the 13,604 counted, i.e., about three-fourths, were met with on these four systems; their total tonnages amounted to 92 per cent. of the total capacity of the French boats.

French Boats, classified according to the District in which they were

French Boats, classified according to the District in which Enumerated—Contd.

In the second part of the Census and Industrial Returns Act of 1891 it is provided that "inquiry shall be made into the industrial condition of the people, the hours of labour, the regularity of employment, the wages of workers, and the accommodation afforded by employers for their workpeople, the employment of children and females, the displacement of labour by machinery, the return upon capital invested, the variations in prices, and any other subject on which the Colonial Secretary may deem it expedient to have inquiry made."

Power to accomplish the object in view is conferred by the provision that "it shall be lawful for the government statistician, or any person duly authorised under his hand, to enter any factory, mine, workshop, or place where persons are employed, at any time within reasonable hours, for the purpose of making any inquiries or observations needful for the proper carrying out of this Act."

In accordance with these provisions, an inquiry, of which a first instalment has lately been published, has been made into the conditions of labour in the various industries. Attention has for the most part been confined to the hours of labour, the regularity of employment, the accommodation provided for workers, their wages, the employment of women and children, and similar subjects. The other heads of inquiry mentioned in the Act will be dealt with in a later report.

The present instalment contains reports on the tailoring industry, dressmaking, millinery, whitework and various articles of clothing, the manufacture of woollen cloth, laundries, and shirt making.

1. The tailoring industry employs the greatest number of hands, but a majority of these are out-door, who take work home, the factory system not having yet assumed large proportions in

New South Wales: Census and Industrial Returns Act of 1891 (information respecting).

Sydney. The factories, employed chiefly in the manufacture of slops," are struggling to oust the English made goods from the markets. The cost of making up the articles is, in Sydney, from 75 to 100 per cent. greater than in London; and it has been found that the people generally prefer the goods made in the colony, which are more suitable in shape and are more to the local taste, so long as the price is not more than 15 per cent. above that of the English goods.

With regard to the earnings, these can only be roughly determined, as the workpeople are paid by the piece, while there are many extras and allowances to be taken into consideration. On the whole, after making due allowance for deductions for irregularity of employment (as to which the opinions of the employers differ essentially from those of the executive officers of the union), the average annual wage appears to be 114l. or 2l. 48. per week, for indoor employés, though many earn less, and many much more. The hours of work vary from about 48 to 51 hours per week, with some few exceptions. The home workers, who are mostly women, earn throughout the year an average of 208. to 228. 6d. weekly. It appears that a single girl can maintain herself in moderate comfort on this; but when a woman has children depending on her, she will require some 30s., and this means working 12 to 14 hours daily, not to mention the calls on her time for domestic duties, &c. There is also another large class of outside workers, by whom the work is taken on sub-contract. This is the nearest approach to "sweating" that has been detected.

2. The greatest complaint made by the hands in the dressmaking trade is as to overtime. The nominal hours are, in most cases, 9 till 6, with an allowance for dinner, and till 1 or 2 on Saturdays, but in many establishments these hours appear to be greatly exceeded, and the women are constantly detained up till 9 or even 11 o'clock. It is only in few cases that overtime is paid for, while fines for being late are common. Wages in this trade appear, on the average, to be only about 138. 8d. per week; this is exclusive of the small number of highly paid head dressmakers, skirt drapers, and forewomen on the one hand, and the apprentices on the other. Excluding the apprentices only, the average is about 178. 6d. per week. In the country the wages are slightly better. Dressmakers working in their own homes usually earn more than they would if employed in shops, for when a connection is once formed, work is fairly plentiful, and sufficiently profitable to afford them a frugal subsistence. The average gross income for 75 houses visited is 658. 5d., but after paying assistants' wages and making allowance for cases where two or more members of a family share in the proceeds, the average net income per head is 398. 9d. per week.

Comparing the earnings of home workers employing paid assistants with the earnings of those who employ none, the average net incomes per worker are 478. 4d. and 318. 5d. per week respectively. The assistants employed number about 25 per house, earning an average of 9s. 7d. each; or, excluding nine unpaid apprentices, 108. 5d. each per week. It would therefore appear

that the advantage the home workers derive from employing assistants is equal to 158. 11d. per employer, and dividing by 25, the average number of assistants, this gives a profit to the employer of 68. 4d. per week for each assistant employed.

The annual earnings of the work women do not, however, on an average, amount to more than 32% or 33., as during two periods of the year employers grant compulsory "holidays," these periods being those just before the change from winter to summer, and vice versâ. These are often felt as a great hardship. Wages are kept low in this trade to some extent by the competition of women who accept work without desiring to earn their living, but who "just want to do something." The apprentices as a rule are not paid, at all events in the city, and the system of apprenticeship is very loose. The girls pick up what they can without being regularly taught, as the employers do not care whether they learn anything or not, for the apprentices frequently leave before their (purely nominal) term is finished. The girls then engage themselves elsewhere, though quite incompetent, as "improvers." These remarks as to apprentices apply equally to the tailoring trade.

3. Millinery is a much more attractive trade; the work is lighter, and the hours of labour (usually 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and 1 p.m. on Saturdays) appear to be strictly observed. This last point is a serious consideration with parents, who prefer to apprentice their girls to this trade, knowing that they will not be compelled to return home alone at almost any time of night. In consequence of these advantages there is a greater demand for employment, and vacancies are easily filled, and it naturally results that wages range lower, so much so that in the lower grades those whose pay in this trade represents their sole income cannot possibly live in any comfort. The majority of the employées have other means, and many take to it as a useful accomplishment, the money to them being of very little moment. The pay in the lowest grade ranges from 48. to 158. per week, the average being about 88. the higher grades the pay is much better, head milliners averaging 31. a week, while many of this class are imported from London and Paris, and are paid at special rates. The apprentices usually serve their time in the same establishment; in some cases they receive a certain wage after having been employed for a certain period.

In

4. In the "whitework and various articles of clothing" there are two main classes of workers, factory hands and home workers. The former of these are much better off: they are often trained and employed, throughout the regular gradations, in the same establishment, and their pay is better than that of the home workers, who are paid by the piece, and who are for the most part widows, or wives whose husbands earn nothing, and others reduced by misfortune. In the factories a worker is apparently often paid by the piece or by the week, accordingly as either arrangement is most remunerative to the proprietor, e.g., if a worker paid by the week does not produce enough to satisfy her employer, she may be put on piecework, and vice versa. Apprentices average 28. 6d. a

week, and machinists about 16s., while improvers and finishers earn amounts between these two sums. Forewomen and cutters earn much more, but these are in the highest positions, and are comparatively few in number, the majority being machinists. The pay of home workers varies immensely, according to the skill of the individual and the article made; excluding extreme cases, and deducting the outlay which the employée must incur for travelling and other expenses, the average earnings come out at 118. 9d. per head per week. The home workers were formerly much better off, when there were no factories or middlemen.

5. Considerable difficulty has been experienced in establishing woollen cloth mills in New South Wales, and the number in operation at one time has varied considerably. At the present moment there are five; four of these were formerly flour mills, and are consequently not so convenient as they might otherwise be. In four of the five the total number of hands is 145 (75 males and 70 females). The working hours are 54 per week, in which time the men earn 30s. to 70s. according to their grade, while the women earn from 158. to 30s. The mills are too small, and the machinery too old fashioned to secure any considerable output, that of the largest mill being only 150,000 yards annually. Most of the mills are consequently worked in connection with a clothing factory, which enables the proprietor to gain a certain amount of profit that he could not possibly make with the mill alone.

6. The most important consideration in the laundry business in Sydney is drainage, which is in most cases bad, while in many cases the stables attached to the laundry are not drained at all. The health of the workpeople is also affected, in some laundries, by the hot room in which many have to work, while laundry keepers assert that clothes are sometimes sent to the wash from sick rooms and hospitals without their having first been disinfected. Wages vary, on an average, from 128. 3d.-the earnings of folders (who generally have more overtime than the others)—to 258. 9d., earned by the starch ironers. Washers earn about 218. per week, while sorters, who must be able to read and write, and require some knowledge of arithmetic, earn about 50s. There is a considerable amount of overtime, which is paid for, and holidays are rare; while absence, whether from sickness or any other cause, entails the loss of the wages.

7. Only some 150 hands are employed in the shirtmaking industry, and there are only four factories, which confine themselves almost entirely to white shirts of good quality. The other kinds of shirts mostly come under the head of whitework and sundries. The hours in this trade average about 44 per week; but among home workers the average is nearly 60. The wages paid vary from nothing or 28. to 78. 6d. for apprentices, and from 78. 6d. to 218. for machinists, the scales of payment for the others being intermediate between these, except for cutters and forewomen, of whom there are naturally but few. Home workers average 118. 6d. per week.

As regards the accommodation for workers, which has been carefully studied in the investigations, it varies considerably in the