Chapter III

REGULATION OF INJURIOUS OR DANGEROUS OCCUPATIONS IN FACTORIES
AND WORKSHOPS IN SOME OF THE CHIEF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

In the historical sketch of the development in England of factory and workshop hygiene, I have endeavoured to indicate the groundwork on which special regulations for dangers arising out of the nature or the organisation of particular processes rest. Comprehension of the meaning of regulations for industrial health in other countries would be greatly increased for the student of this branch of comparative legislation and administration, if there were knowledge of the historical development of these institutions not only in one but in all the countries touched on. But then, equally so would there be gain in acquiring practical administrative experience in all those countries. Although both kinds of knowledge are not equally impracticable of attainment by one individual, the limits of space and time in such a chapter as this prohibit any attempt to enter on either field so far as details are concerned, and it is only possible to take the absolutely necessary step of entering a warning against over-estimation of the value of comparative surveys of systems of factory law and schemes of administration which are not followed by further research. With a view to such further research I trust that the slight survey attempted here may be of value.

While fully appreciating the need of supplementing study of the law relating to factory hygiene in any country by reference to the system of local government and the law relating to public health, I am compelled by the limits already touched on to concentrate attention on the one branch of law--factory legislation proper.

England stands in a special position, with its own qualities and own defects. Having entered long before most other European countries on the path of control of employment in factories owing to the earlier need of such regulation, and having admittedly also led the way in the task of building up a complete and precise sanitary code for regulation of public health, England has shown in the later stages of the part of the work which touches industry too little interest in the later efforts, on different lines of other countries. This slowness is traceable in part to the same causes as those which have retarded in England the general study of comparative legislation and administration, of which foremost, no doubt, stands the necessity of developing on national lines our own safeguards, yet it seems probable that the country which in a singular degree stimulated European progress in Public Health by the justly famous “Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population,” 1838, and its immediate fruits, has latterly retarded its own progress in industrial hygiene by too close an adherence to its own methods. However this may be, it is clear that whereas Continental thinkers have already begun to utter warnings as to the limits of the value of comparative study of labour legislation, we in England are still waiting for sufficient material and accurate information on which to base any comparisons at all. Even for those who have time to do little more than mould their opinions by reading the daily and weekly papers, still more for those who desire to devote more time to these subjects, it would be well if we had continually accessible, in convenient form, current documents which would enable us to estimate more exactly what we have to learn from other countries, and what are the ideas applied there which are capable of application here under different circumstances of social and administrative tradition and legislative groundwork.[23] And to understand any one branch of factory legislation, even the sanitary, engineering, and medical side of prevention of industrial diseases and accidents, knowledge must be acquired of other sides, the economic one of limitation of hours and times of work, and protection of workers in making their contract, no less than the social side of propriety of arrangements in the workplace, and direct or indirect protection of women, home life, and children’s training. The time has come, however, when there is a new readiness for the interchange of ideas between this country and others on the question of general provision for sanitation and special regulation for dangerous, unhealthy, and injurious occupations. As I have said elsewhere, “with the rise and development of new methods and even entire industries in new places, old and new dangers and diseases are rapidly becoming clearer. The international interest in applying science at an equal pace to the development and to the sanitation of injurious industries is at once more equal and more urgent than in the indirectly hygienic questions of hours and holidays for industrial workers. At the same time the difficulties of regulation are far less prominently economic, legal or social, and more especially questions for treatment by expert scientific advisers.”

In order to estimate with an approach to accuracy the value of special measures adopted in other countries, it is necessary to obtain some idea of the ordinary scope of factory legislation, and of the degree in which the laws are made operative by methods of administration, and by sanctions attached to contraventions. The regulations for ordinary health and safety, which “at first blush” bear considerable resemblance to each other, are found on closer examination to have widely differing effectiveness, owing perhaps in one case to lack of precise definition or to special limitation of the class of workplaces covered; in another to the powers conferred both on local and on central authorities to sanction exceptions either to the Industrial Code, or orders made under it; in another to local variations in economic organisation of industries affected. For example, on the first point, more cases of disputed application of the code, which contains no _definition_ of the term “factory,” have in Germany come before the courts than in England, and in Germany the special restrictions as regards hours and health for women and young workers apply only in “factories.” The various decisions, on particular instances, of the Supreme Court lay stress now on one feature, now on another, of what is understood as a factory, such as numbers employed, size of the building, subdivision of labour, active personal share of the employer in the processes. Application of mechanical power to manufacture by machinery generally brings a workplace under the scope of the factory regulations, but power is retained for the Federal Council to exempt even from this rule any special undertaking. The Austrian Industrial Code does define the term “factory,” but very much on the lines threshed out by the decisions of the German _Reichsgericht_. In both these countries there is much less control of conditions of labour in workshops than in factories, although Austria makes rather less distinction than Germany between the two. Whereas England distinguishes these two classes of workplace only by relegating general sanitary control of the workshops to the local authority, not by differing requirements, France makes none of the distinction between factory and workshop which in one form or another is found in other European countries. In both these countries the general protection of the law covers alike factory and workshop employé; in Germany the Code has not gone further than to empower the Federal Council to extend the factory regulations, if cause should be found, to workshops. “Domestic workshops” are entirely exempt from regulation of labour in Germany and Austria. England stands alone in defining limits in domestic workshops for the labour of children and young persons, but hitherto has not taken the power of applying special sanitary regulation,[24] which both France and Belgium possess, for protection against dangerous or unhealthy occupations carried on in them. From even so brief a review of the classes of workplaces covered, it easily appears how in the past in some countries the domestic workshops in dangerous industries, _e.g._, lucifer match making (unknown except in factories in England), have furnished a disproportionate number of victims of industrial disease.

While the first question necessarily is, what are the workplaces covered by the regulations? the second and equally important is, what is the system of inspection? In most countries, as in England, the institution of a special inspectorate has followed, not accompanied, the enactment of measures of protection, even though in some countries the idea of sanitary regulation has preceded limitation of hours for women and minors. In Belgium, Holland, and Sweden the institution dates from 1888–9; in Switzerland, and some of the German States, beginning with Prussia, it dates from 1878; in Austria, from about 1887; France, from 1874; Denmark, 1873. About 1892 to 1893 both France and Belgium undertook the reorganisation of their inspectorate, which corresponds to the thorough reconstruction that in England followed the Royal Commission on Factory Legislation in 1876.

In several of these countries, all of which had originally to some extent looked to the far earlier example and experience of England in enforcement of the law, the important step was taken, considerably in advance of England, of bringing into the factory service medical, engineering, and chemical expert knowledge. No doubt in England, the delay in this matter is directly traceable to the character stamped on the institution by the educational, moral, and social origin of our Factory Acts, and to the very recent beginnings of development (1883–1891) of a special basis of factory hygiene. The delay in England was probably further increased by the introduction (referred to in my historical sketch) of tentative investigations of industrial diseases under the ægis of an entirely separate Government Department, concerned with local government and administration of the law relating to public health. This delay as compared with Germany was, however, more than compensated, when the Act of 1891 had introduced special means of control of injurious trades, by the centralised, organised character of the English inspectorate. Although the German Federal Council can make regulations for injurious industries throughout the Empire which over-ride special state or local rules, still each state has hitherto appointed its own inspectors, and when appointed these inspectors in order to enforce the rules must ordinarily report infringements to the local police authority, who may or may not always take action. Thus in Germany uniformity of administration in such matters outside the boundary of any state, so far as it depends on centralised supervision, can hardly be looked for. Much more closely knit is the Austrian inspectorate, with its chief inspector, who has some expert advisers on his staff, and power himself to take part in final decisions on cases brought up, on appeal, to the industrial authority of third and final instance at the Ministry of the Interior. Only in Austria, so far as I know, is it obligatory in fixing a penalty for a contravention to take into account both the amount of advantage the offender might expect from the infringement and the amount of harm that the worker may suffer. The latter consideration would be weightiest in questions of health and safety, and since the fines have to be paid into local provident funds for workers, would correspond to the penal compensation in case of injury through neglect to fence machinery possible under English law. Medical and chemical reports are less prominent in the Austrian inspectorate than the German, and it has been distinctly laid down that the inspectors are not so much engineering and sanitary experts as a special institution for the protection of labour; since 1876 the supervision of dangerous and unhealthy industries has been one of the functions of the provincial authorities for public health. Although in France the inspectorate has been organised on lines, so far as territorial divisions are concerned, similar to those in England, _i.e._, with district and superintending inspectors, it is without a chief inspector, and works under the general supervision of a commission (_Commission supérieure du Travail dans l’Industrie_). This system has been declared by one of the oldest superintending or divisional inspectors to work most unsatisfactorily in the matter of control of dangerous industries where the great need is that the circumstances not of a locality, but the country as a whole, should be considered by a chief having under his directions both expert officials and an organised staff. The special expert character of the central Belgian inspectorate is determined by the fact that the earliest inspectors were appointed (1889) under the law relating to sanitation and safety in dangerous or unhealthy industries, and not under the law limiting hours of labour for women and children. The latter were first appointed in 1891, and the whole service organised as one in 1895. Of the Scandinavian countries Denmark has had the most definitely constituted inspectorate, but here the central authority has hitherto been divided (as it was before 1876 in England) between two principal inspectors. This is now altered. An Act which came into force on 1st January 1902, not only amends and strengthens the law relating to factories, but also centralises the control by providing for a single chief or director with two expert secretaries, one trained in economic questions, the other in technical questions. Of the remaining European countries Hungary possesses an organised and centralised inspectorate of the English type. In Russia control of the methods of inspectors is by a system of Provincial Boards under the supreme supervision of the Chief Factory and Mining Board, presided over by the Minister of Finance, who places some of the principal inspectors on the Board.

I may turn from the field of application of the laws and methods of organising inspection to the methods of securing _general_ sanitary conditions and security in workplaces. England stands alone in both delegating certain sanitary powers to local authorities, and at the same time retaining power to the Government inspectors to intervene in these matters in case of default of the local authority, and yet we have nothing quite comparable to the powers of health authorities in Belgium, Germany, and Austria, to lay down in certificates of authorisation for large numbers of workplaces, conditions aimed at securing the health of the workers as well as the public health. In some cases, particularly in Belgium, this power extends beyond the trades here classed as noxious or offensive, and includes amongst many trades recognised as injurious to workers even laundries, one of the last of the great manual industries to be regulated in this country. Quite early in the nineteenth century we find laundries appearing in French lists of noxious or offensive trades under two classes, (_a_) as requiring authorisation for establishment near dwellings, (_b_) as requiring internal supervision on account of decomposing soap and water. In Germany and Austria, lists of trades subject to preliminary authorisation are shorter than in Belgium, but there is nothing in other countries equivalent to the absolute duty placed upon German local authorities, apart from all initiative of numerous Government inspectors, to visit every industrial establishment where protected persons are employed at least once in six months, in order to apply the provisions of the industrial code in all matters relating to safety, sanitation, and propriety of arrangements. Further, we have in England nothing comparable to the powers of the separate State Authorities in Germany to call in the advice of the Accident Assurance Associations under the Accident Insurance Laws in order to restrict hours of labour in dangerous occupations, or to carry into effect the general requirements of the Code relating to safety and health. In general, in comparing special rules against dangers in industry as between England and Germany, due weight must be given to the consideration that for many years in Germany there has been insurance for workers both against accident and sickness; also it must be remembered that the Civil Code lays a positive obligation on every master to secure for his servants arrangements for health, safety, and morality in their employment such as are also required in the Industrial Code. We are, moreover, in Austria and Germany reviewing countries in which traces of the old guild organisation of industry survive both in law and fact, and the industrial codes, while defining the duties of employers to workers, expressly require obedience and fidelity from the worker to his employer. Discipline thus is a far easier matter in a German than an English workplace, a factor of very considerable importance in regulation of dangerous trades.

It would not be difficult to demonstrate in tabular form that England and Germany stand easily first among the European countries in respect of detailed attempts to regulate unhealthy industries by special Government rules, but it must suffice presently to set forth the trades so regulated in these two, while touching on some of the salient features of special rules in other countries. First, however, it must be indicated how the various countries stand to each other in such general matters as ventilation and lighting of workrooms, temperature, provision of meal rooms, cloak rooms, lavatories, drinking water, arrangements for sanitary accommodation, reporting and prevention of accidents.

As regards _ventilation_, until the Bill of 1901 to amend the Factory Acts was introduced by the Government, England stood almost alone in requiring removal of air from workrooms _only_ so far as injurious dust, gases, and vapours arose from the manufacturing process. The laws of Germany, Austria, and Belgium recognised much earlier the need of ample ventilation in a workroom, quite apart from the special question of removal of poisonous or injurious products of manufacture, although for those too sufficient provision had been made. In Belgium, general ventilation of workrooms was one of the special conditions of authorisation of unhealthy trades under a decree of 1886, but in 1894 it was particularly laid down for all workshops that means of securing renewal of the air equal to at least 30 cubic metres per hour per worker should be provided, and that where unhealthy processes were carried on, the removal should be equal to 60 cubic metres. “The inlets for fresh air and outlets for vitiated air shall be so placed as to cause no inconvenience to workers.” On this followed the further provisions for exhaust ventilation for steam, gases, and dust. A French decree of the same year is rather less exacting in the matter of general ventilation, but more precise as to the measures necessary for removing or preventing injurious dusts, gases, and steam. In Austria and Germany, in addition to the general proviso that workrooms are to be maintained in such a condition as to secure the health of workers, both general ventilation and special provision for removing dust and fumes are required. These requirements are of much earlier date than the French and German decrees referred to. General ventilation and removal of dust from workrooms are required in Hungary by the law of 1893, and will be in Denmark by the law to come into force in 1902.

As regards _lighting_ of workrooms, a condition of health almost as important as ventilation, several of the more important industrial countries have provisions, although England has hitherto left the matter untouched. Germany by section 128, and Austria by section 74, of their respective industrial codes recognise sufficient light as an essential condition of health in factories. In France provision is made for proper lighting of workrooms and also of passages, staircases, and other accessory parts of factories and workshops. In Belgium and Denmark lighting has hitherto been required as a measure of safety, not of health. On the other hand, the important sanitary question of _temperature_ is more carefully provided for by the general law now in England than in the codes of other countries.

Suitable dining-rooms, which can only be required in dangerous industries under special rules in England, may by the German code be ordered wherever it seems desirable by the local authority, who may also require that they shall be heated in cold weather. In France, although it is laid down that all workrooms must be cleared, and the air entirely renewed during meal hours, the law is silent as regards provision of meal rooms; consequently, as in certain cases in England, inspectors report difficulties in enforcing the evacuation of workrooms during meal hours. It is frankly admitted in the latest annual report that the law has hitherto only been strictly applied where the nature of the manufacturing process makes the restriction essential for protection of the health of the worker: mostly in trades classed in this country as injurious. The Belgian law does not in this matter go quite so far as the French, the restriction applying only to rooms in which poisonous substances are handled. Suitable lavatories, cloakrooms, and drinking water are required in all factories and workshops in France by the decree of 1894, a requirement going far beyond those of other countries, for example Germany, where provision of lavatories and cloakrooms depend on their being required by the nature of the work, and where a detailed order must be made to that effect by the police authority for specified classes of workplaces. As in the case of meals in workrooms, it appears from the official reports that in France the provision of washing appliances is enforced only in chemical works, workplaces where poisonous substances are handled, rag-sorting shops, tobacco factories, and a few other classes of workplace, where the nature of the work makes it important that such protection should be given.

The French and the Belgian laws are as yet the only ones which attempt to define precisely a standard, independent of local conditions, for sufficient and suitable sanitary conveniences. The German code makes a general requirement as to sufficiency and suitability, having regard to number and sex of workers, and leaves details to police regulation. In Belgium the number must be one convenience at least for every twenty-five workers, in France for every fifty workers, and in neither country may there be direct communication with workrooms. It is clearly stated in inspectors’ reports that in France the conditions in sanitary respects are far from being fully enforced, although the general limit of one in fifty is not infringed. These two countries again have general provision for the very important matters of drainage of floors and frequent cleansing of workrooms, and prompt removal from them of organic matter. “The floor shall be cleansed, thoroughly, at least once a day before or after the period of employment,” in the French decree of 1893, is a provision which appears to be well enforced and is applicable to all industries. The inspectors are specially instructed to draw attention to the hygienic value of a cleansing which takes place before the entry of workers. The sanitary value of such a practice, whether in dusty, poisonous, or ordinary workshops, cannot possibly be overrated.

Glancing for a moment at general regulations to protect women and young workers, as distinct from adult workers, two points only can be touched on, protection of young workers against overstrain, and women from accidents and from too early employment after childbirth. The brevity of this article makes it impossible to compare in detail the limits of age for child labour in the different countries, but some special safeguards under the French law cannot be passed by: (_a_) careful detailed regulation of the weights that may be pushed, lifted, carried by girls and boys under eighteen years of age; (_b_) prohibition of employment of girls under sixteen at machines driven by treadles; (_c_) prohibition of employment of young workers in a large number of processes scheduled as unhealthy; (_d_) cleaning of machinery in motion is prohibited not only for young workers but also for women. The German Industrial Code especially insists on the peculiar responsibility of employers to take every possible step to protect young workers from risks of all kinds.

The limitations as regards employment of women after childbirth may be briefly summarised as follows:--

_Belgium._--“Women must not be employed in industry within four weeks after childbirth” (sect. 5 of Law of 5th December 1889).

_Switzerland._--“A total absence from employment in factories of women during eight weeks before and after childirth must be observed, and on their return to work proof must be tendered of an absence since birth of the child of at least six weeks” (section 15 of the Federal Law of 23rd March 1877). An order of the Federal Council, 1897, indicates a further abstinence from employment before confinement (the length of time unspecified) in certain dangerous occupations, _e.g._, in processes in which fumes of white phosphorus are produced; or in manipulation of lead or lead products; or where mercury or sulphuric acid are used; in dry cleaning works; in indiarubber works; any processes involving lifting or carrying heavy weights, or risk of violent shocks. As the limit of the period is undefined, and means of enforcing the prohibition unspecified, it is difficult to see how the regulation does more than outline an excellent theoretical protection.

_Holland._--“Women must not be employed in factories or workshops within four weeks after childbirth” (Law of 5th May 1889).

_Denmark._--“Women must not be employed within four weeks of childbirth except on production of a medical certificate showing that the mother’s employment will not be injurious to herself or the child” (Law of 1st July 1901).

_Germany._--The Industrial Code contains the same absolute prohibition of employment during four weeks as the Dutch law, but extends it to six weeks if a medical certificate cannot be produced approving employment at the end of four weeks.

_Austria._--The Industrial Code lays down the same prohibition as the Dutch law.

_Spain_, by a law of 13th March 1900, prohibits employment of women within three weeks of childbirth, but lays a further obligation on employers to allow one hour at least in the ordinary period of employment (for which there must be no deduction from wages) to nursing mothers to nurse their infants. This hour may be divided into two separate absences of half-an-hour, and may be fixed at pleasure by the mother, whose only obligation is to notify the times she chooses to the overlooker.

Turning to _accidents_ and their prevention in factory and workshop employment, it is probable that only in Germany and Austria, through the operation of the long-established insurance laws, is there anything approaching the completeness of information with regard to occurrence and causes of accidents secured in England by the duty of reporting so precisely defined in the Factory Acts. On the other hand, through the operation of the same insurance laws, the fencing and other precautions against occurrence of accidents, necessarily tend to be far completer than in any country where this motive has only recently arisen (as in France and England). It is indeed expressly stated in the last annual report of the French inspectors, that the statistics of accidents are very far from indicating the real state of affairs, and that it cannot be known until the law of employers’ liability for accidents, of 1898, has come fully into operation. Possibly to the admittedly ineffectual control by Government in France of the causes and prevention of accidents is due the formation and steady growth of Employers’ Associations with the object of reducing industrial accidents by careful fencing and organisation of work. Details as to methods adopted in the various countries for guarding machinery and reducing risk of accidents would be too elaborate and technical for this article. So far as the various laws, distinguished from administrative regulation, are concerned, none contain so complete a series of provisions as the English Factory Acts, though Belgian and French decrees contain some excellent safeguards. In Germany, as can be readily verified by reference to any volume of Government inspectors’ reports, much of the detailed work of enforcing use of safeguards is done by the Trade Accident Associations, often acting in co-operation with the State inspectors. Not only are rules relating to safeguards--for example, the elaborate ones in aerated water works--drawn up by the Trade Associations, but they are enforceable by penalty both on employers and employed after they have been duly authorised by the Imperial Insurance Office. Employers neglecting the rules may be condemned to pay double their ordinary contribution to the Trade Association, and the fines imposed on workers are payable to the Sick Insurance Fund.

Turning now to governmental regulation of specially unhealthy or injurious occupations by more closely applied and more easily amended rules than are possible in a general code, I must revert again to the observation made above, that only in England and Germany can a clear comparison be made of “special rules”; this applies both to the method of formulating such rules, and to the number and variety of trades so regulated. Other countries have in their general factory law powers to make somewhat similar regulation, but have relied in a greater degree on control of injurious occupations by local authorities concerned with the law relating to public health, or have endeavoured, especially in France, to lay down in a single administrative decree general requirements as to exhaust ventilation for dust and fumes, washing appliances, meal-rooms, etc., which would be likely to cover the special risks in many industries. In Belgium, where special rules for safety of workers in dangerous industries (such as manufacture of lucifer matches by means of white or yellow phosphorus) have been drawn up, both in pursuance of the general law regulating factories (1889) and of the laws relating to noxious industries, under control of local authorities, there is an increasing tendency for sanitary regulation of workplaces to pass into the control of the central factory inspectors.[25] There we find in the decree of 1894, relating to general precautions in unhealthy industries, very similar provisions to those in the French decree of the same year; but the Belgian decree is declared in its preamble to be a codification of the conditions liable to be attached to certificates of authorisation by the local authorities, whereas in the French decree we clearly find the first step in an attempt to apply the general law of 1893, relating to hygiene in factories and workshops. An exceedingly interesting commentary on the incomplete and unsatisfactory effect of this latter method is found in the summary to the annual report of the French inspectors for 1899. I gave a translation of the terms of the decree in my annual report for 1894 to the Chief Inspector of Factories, and need not repeat them here. The difficulties since complained of in France are twofold--(_a_) judicial, as to interpretation in the courts of some of the exceedingly vague terms employed, (_b_) technical, owing to the inappropriateness in some of the industries of rules which are admirable in others. There is a growing demand, likely to be met after completion of current investigations in various unhealthy industries, for more detailed and precise rules, applicable to special processes or to classes or allied groups of industries. Such special rules were clearly originally intended to be the outcome of the law on hygiene, 1893, but in only one case, the manufacture of emerald or Schweinfurth green, have special rules binding both on employers and workers been applied (decree of 29th June 1895) to the peculiar risks of the processes. “Does that mean,” says the official report of 1900, “that it is only in this branch of manufacture that the need for special protection of workers against the injurious effects of the processes has appeared? No. The Government have had under consideration a certain number of draft rules for application to particular industries ... for example, industries in which lead and lead compounds, mercury, arsenic, or arsenious acid, and varnishes with an alcoholic base are used.” In the meantime the result of their considerations has been that draft rules for electric accumulator works, vulcanisation of india rubber, laundries (against danger from infectious diseases), horn and woollen factories, handling of foreign hides and skins, were referred to the Committee of Public Hygiene, for an opinion to guide the Minister of Commerce and Industry before he finally issues the decrees, embodying the rules. It appeared, however, that the statutory powers of this Committee do not go beyond the framing of recommendations applicable to industries in general, and the Minister of Commerce and Industry appointed, therefore, in December 1900 a special Dangerous Trades Committee, composed of nine members, under the Presidency of M. le Docteur Napias, Member of the _Académie de Médecine_. The aim in selecting the members of the Committee was to secure the technical and scientific knowledge necessary for preparation of special rules suitable to particular classes of industry, processes, or modes of working. In addition to expert members such as M. Bouquet, M. Fontaine, and Professors of Chemistry, Economics, and Representatives of Employers and Employed, four other members may be appointed for the special technical considerations belonging to each trade or class of work to be regulated.

As regards poisonous processes, in all but the deadliest, where the frequency and severity of illness (as, _e.g._, amongst white lead workers) long ago led to inquiry followed by special local precautions, inquiry must be greatly handicapped in France, as it has been in Germany, by the lack of complete statistics of industrial poisoning such as have been secured in England. In no other country has the step been taken of laying both on the occupier of a factory or workshop and on every medical practitioner the duty of reporting to a chief inspector of factories, or the central authority, individual cases of industrial poisoning. The lack of information would possibly have been earlier felt in all its seriousness in both France and Germany had there been the centralised responsibility that followed the appointment of a single chief inspector in England. Although in France the attention of the Minister of Commerce and Industry has been repeatedly drawn to the effects of lead poisoning in potteries, and special precautions are recognised as necessary, it is difficult, as Dr Oliver pointed out in his report of 1899 to the Home Secretary, “to estimate the amount of lead poisoning that occurs in the potteries in France,” owing to the incompleteness of statistics. In Germany, where considerable information can be obtained in some districts, through the records kept under the Sickness Insurance Laws, the incompleteness and uncertain character of the information supplied is the subject of frequent report by the factory inspectors. In the Potsdam district, where there are innumerable glazed-tile stove factories, great service was done by the action of a sick fund doctor, who reported that in the dipping department nearly every worker suffered, more or less, from lead poisoning. Energetic precautionary measures were taken by the local authority, and great improvement in health of workers was soon reported by the doctor. In other districts, on the other hand, comments are frequent from the inspectors on the lack of effective assistance from sick funds and their doctors in tracing the origin of industrial diseases.

In spite of this defectiveness in statistics of industrial disease, it is with the German Imperial Regulations (Orders of the Federal Council made in pursuance of section 120 of the Industrial Code) that the English method of regulating dangerous trades can be best compared.[26] Some years before it was possible in England under section 8 of the Factory Act of 1891 to schedule as dangerous or injurious any process, machinery, or particular description of manual labour in a factory or workshop, the Federal Council of the German Empire, or the central authority in any one of the Federal States, was empowered to draw up special rules to guard against risks of injury to life, health or limbs of workers, and to limit hours of adults as well as of minors. Such rules, bearing date 1888 and 1889, are still in force. This power was strengthened by an amendment in 1891 to the Industrial Code, applying to protected persons, which empowered the Federal Council to forbid entirely the employment of women or young workers, or to make it dependent on very stringent conditions in occupations dangerous to health or morality. At no time has there been under the German Code a power reserved to employers, similar to that in force in the English law until 1901, of compelling such objections as they can sustain to proposed rules to be settled by arbitration. It has been repeatedly remarked by competent observers that special hygiene in German factories, particularly chemical factories, has far surpassed the standards obtaining until recently in England. This is not surprising when the greater facilities in Germany for giving effect by administrative measures to expert recommendations are remembered; but the readiness of workers to submit to regulations, to which I have referred already, is certainly a factor of importance. It is remarkable that, in spite of the difference, more or less stringent special rules have been established in twenty-four classes of unhealthy industries in England, as compared with fifteen similar sets of rules in Germany; it must be observed that in some of the latter more than one class of works is included, as, for example, in the special rules of January 1899, which cover both horsehair spinneries and brushmaking works.

It is of interest to compare as follows the classes of industries included, and the date of the regulations:--

SPECIAL RULES FOR INJURIOUS OCCUPATIONS.

ENGLAND.

Date of
Industry or Process. Schedule.

1 Bichromate works, 1892

2 Bottling of aerated water, 1896

3 Brass and alloy mixing and casting, 1896

4 Bricks, glazing of, by lead, 1898

5 Chemical works, 1892

6 Earthenware and china, 1892 & 1898

7 Enamelling of iron plates, 1892

8 Electric accumulator works, 1894

9 Explosive works in which
dinitrobenzole is used, 1892

10 Flax spinning and weaving, 1894

11 Lead (red and orange) works, 1894

12 Lead (white) works, 1883 & 1893

13 Lead (yellow) works, 1892

14 Lead smelting works, 1894

15 Lead, yellow chromate of, 1895

16 Lucifer match factories, 1892

17 Paint and colour works,
and extraction of arsenic, 1892

18 Skins and hides, sorting, 1898

19 Tinning and enamelling of
iron hollow ware, 1894

20 Tinning and enamelling of
metal ware, 1894

21 Transfers (lithographic) for
decoration of china,
etc., 1898

22 Vulcanising of indiarubber, 1896

23 Wool sorting, 1896

24 Wool combing, 1899

GERMANY.

Date of
Industry or Process. Regulation.

1 Basic slag works, 1899

2 Bichromate works, 1897

3 Brick works, 1892

4 Brushmaking works and
horsehair spinning, 1899

5 Cigar factories, 1893

6 Chicory works, 1892

7 Electric accumulator works, 1898

8 Glassworks, 1892

9 Hackling and preparing
rooms in textile factories, 1893

10 Lead, colour and acetate
of lead works, 1893

11 Letterpress printing works, 1897

12 Lucifer match works, 1884 & 1893

13 Sugar refineries, 1892

14 Vulcanising of indiarubber, 1888

15 Wire-drawing mills, 1892

It must not, however, be forgotten that some dangers for which no apparent provision is made in the list of German rules are to some extent covered by other means--for example, mercurial poisoning among thermometer makers by rules of the Accident Insurance Associations, or earthenware works by regulations of local authorities or by action of separate State authorities.

On first comparison of the two sets of special rules in detail, it would appear that whereas white lead works, earthenware works, and indiarubber works, are far more stringently regulated in England than in Germany, other industries, for example, electric accumulator works, letterpress printing works, are subject to closer control than any here. In the German rules for electric accumulator works we find prohibition of employment of women and girls, limitation of hours for men, detailed conditions as to construction and cleansing of premises and floors, in addition to the more common regulations for baths, lavatories, medical examination, sick registers; whereas in the English rules there are only provisions for baths, lavatories, respirators, and gloves, no restrictions on employment beyond the ordinary factory limits, and no medical examination. It must be noted that the enforcement of these rules does not rest solely in the hands of the Government inspector, and that before action is possible, the matter must be referred to the local police authority, whose powers in Germany, however, are considerable. The special rules for letterpress printing works are so interesting and typical that I append a translation herewith for comparison with similar English regulations. It seems clear that some of the rules are directed as much against propagation of tubercular disease as against risks of lead poisoning.

In closing this brief survey, reference must not be omitted to the experiment that has been made in three European countries--Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium--of limiting in a single instance (in the interests of the health of workers) the use of a poisonous material in industry. I refer to the use of white phosphorus in the manufacture of lucifer matches. In Switzerland and Holland the use of the material in this industry has been prohibited; in Belgium its use has been limited to a maximum of 8 per cent. in the paste.

ADELAIDE M. ANDERSON.