Dressmaking and Millinery by the English Boards for these trades had had a disastrous effect on the employment and training of juveniles. It was submitted that juveniles could be employed only at a loss; that many already in employment had been discharged; that further recruitment had been checked and that the future of the trade was being menaced by a shortage of skilled workers. It was submitted further that the age basis on which rates for learners had been settled had accentuated the harmful effects of the high level of the rates by depriving young workers of the stimulus to improvement in their work, and that the lack of provision for workers entering at a rather later age than the normal had inflicted great hardship on young persons who had continued their education after the age of 14 years or who for any other reason had been prevented from entering a trade at the normal school-leaving age. Instances were quoted in support of these charges, based on the experience of individual employers in towns and country districts throughout England and Wales. In this connection a letter has been received from the Director of Education of the Liverpool Education Committee, of which the following is a Education (Choice of Employment) Act. The Juvenile Employment Committee of the Local Education Authority, which exercise their powers under the above-named Act, have experienced during the past year or two some considerable difficulty in finding openings for girls as learners in the Dressmaking and Millinery Trades, and their efforts to induce employers to accept girls for training in these trades have to a large extent been unavailing. As a consequence, the Committee have on their books the names of a large number of girls who are anxious to work at the Dressmaking, Millinery and other needle Trades, but for whom there would appear to be little or no chance of employment. In their enquiries from employers on behalf of these applicants, the Committee are constantly met with the statement that owing to the high minimum rates fixed by the Trade Boards for these trades employers cannot engage girls and train them in their workshops without incurring considerable financial loss on the undertaking. There is evidence to show that the workshops in this city are, to a large extent, being depleted of juvenile labour, and the statement is made that much of the work in dressmaking and millinery is being transferred from private workrooms-such as those in connection with large shops, of which there are many in this city -to wholesale factories outside Liverpool. The Committee are aware that the minimum rates have recently been reduced by the Trade Boards, but there does not yet appear to be any appreciable revival in the workrooms in the trades referred to. The Juvenile Employment Committee wonder whether a similar condition is found to prevail elsewhere, and they venture to suggest that the above circumstances indicate a line of enquiry that might, with advantage, be pursued by the Committee appointed by the Ministry of Labour to enquire into the working and effects of the Trade Boards Acts. Yours faithfully, Secretary to the (Sgd.) I. G. LEGGE, Director of Education. Committee of Enquiry into Trade Boards, Some general charges of a similar character to the above were also made against two other Boards for the Retail Clothing Trades, the Retail Bespoke Tailoring Trade Board (G.B.) and the Dressmaking Trade Board (Scotland). 22. Among the Boards for the manufacturing trades those chiefly subjected to criticism in respect of their legislation for juveniles were the Flax and Hemp and the Rope, Twine and Net Trade Boards. The charges were based generally on the same grounds as those brought against the Boards for the Retail Clothing Trades. In the case of the Flax and Hemp Trade Board special stress was laid on the hardship said to have been caused by the absence of provision for late entrants. The high level of the rates fixed by the Rope, Twine and Net Trade Board for young workers was alleged to be impeding their employment and to be breeding among those in employment a sense of irresponsibility and indifference towards their work. 23. It should be added that strong apprehension was expressed by employers in the Grocery Trade as to the probable effects on the employment and training of juveniles should the rates fixed by the Grocery Trade Board (E. & W.), but not yet confirmed, come into operation. 24. (D.) As regards anomalies resulting from unsatisfactory demarcation of trades and from the establishment of a multiplicity of Boards, the criticism submitted related mainly to three groups of trades, the Light Metal Trades, the Textile Trades and the Clothing Trades. It was stated by witnesses of the National Union of Manufacturers and of the Birmingham and Wolverhampton District Association of the Engineering and National Employers' Federations that four separate Boards (Stamped or Pressed Metalwares— Button-making-Pin, Hook and Eye-and Coffin Furniture) had been set up for what was essentially a single trade, which should have been defined on the broad basis of process, subject to certain general exclusions. It was stated that two or more of these branches of work were frequently carried on in a single establishment, but that the separate Boards set up had settled rates on different bases and at different levels. This had led to friction and discontent among workers in establishments where different statutory rates might be applicable to workers working side by side, or even to the same workers at different times, and had necessitated the payment throughout such establishments of the highest statutory rate applicable. This in turn, it was suggested, had produced unfair competition, inasmuch as manufacturers within the scope of several Boards might have to pay to workers engaged on the production of certain articles higher rates than the statutory rates strictly applicable to such work, while their competitors, producing the same articles, but within the scope of one Board only, might escape with the payment of the bare statutory minimum for the work in question. 25. Criticism of the lines of demarcation between the spheres of the Boards set up for the Rope, Twine and Net, the Flax and Hemp and the Jute Trades was submitted by the National Union of Manufacturers and by a representative of the employers' side of the Rope, Twine and Net Trade Board (G.B.). Emphasis in this case was laid on the friction created among workers in an establishment in which different Trade Board rates were current, and on the difficulty of attributing certain work at a given moment to any particular Board. 26. Complaints on similar grounds were made by the Drapers' Chamber of Trade and other Associations based on the experience of traders in managing workrooms attached to drapery establishments in which rates fixed by the Dressmaking, Hat, Cap and Millinery and Retail Bespoke Tailoring Trade Boards might be current at the same time. 27. It should be added that strong apprehensions were expressed by employers in the distributive trades lest the application of the Acts separately to each distributive trade should create confusion in establishments carrying on a number of separate distributive trades in different departments under one roof. This apprehension was voiced with special force by the Incorporated Association of Retail Distributors on behalf of the large London and Provincial Departmental Stores. 28. Complaints were also made that the lines of demarcation adopted in the existing definitions of trades gave rise to further possibilities of unfair competition. Thus in the light metal trades it was stated that in certain factories a small proportion of the work done might fall under a Trade Board. This, it was alleged, necessitated the payment of the Trade Board rates throughout the establishment, a necessity from which competitors in whose establishment no Trade Board rates were current entirely escaped. Criticism was directed against the definition of the General Waste Materials Reclamation Trade on the ground that, while scrap metal sorting when carried on by dealers in scrap metal and general waste materials was included in the minimum rate, it was excluded when carried on by workmen engaged in a similar occupation in conjunction with steel or iron works. exclusion, it was alleged, placed the dealers in scrap metal at a disadvantage. Criticism of a similar character was levelled against the definitions of the Aerated Waters, the Grocery, the Retail Bespoke Tailoring and the Laundry Trades. This 29. (E.) The complaint as to the time required for varying a rate is supported by a volume of evidence from both employers and workers, and is fully made out. The remedy to be applied in order to meet this defect will be considered in a later part of this Report. Replies to the above criticisms A to D. A substantial volume of evidence weighing against these charges has been submitted to us by employers' and workers' organisations. 30. (A.) As regards unemployment and dislocation of trade generally, witnesses representing employers' organisations interested in the Ready-made Tailoring, Shirtmaking, Tin Box and Paper Bag Trades stated that the operation of Trade Boards in their trades had not caused unemployment, and that such unemployment as prevailed was due to the general depression of trade and to other circumstances over which Trade Boards had no control. General submissions of a similar character were made by a witness for the London Chamber of Commerce and by representatives of workers' organisations. 31. As regards charges on these grounds made against individual Trade Boards, it was urged by workers' organisations interested in the Retail Dressmaking, and Hat, Cap and Millinery Trades that, apart from the inevitable reaction of general trade depression, one of the chief causes of the depression in their trades, and especially in retail dressmaking, was the growing success of the wholesale sections of their trades in producing ready-made articles which satisfied the requirements of customers who had hitherto purchased only garments made to order. They stated that the competition of the ready-made articles had been making itself felt many years before Trade Boards had begun to legislate and was an inevitable cause of dislocation in the retail sections of the trades. It was admitted by witnesses of certain employers' organisations that the ready-made section had begun to encroach on the retail sections in the early years of this century. 32. It was further submitted that in these trades the charges on the ground of unemployment caused had been stated with exaggeration. It was urged that the trades were seasonal, and that heavy discharges of workpeople at certain seasons of the year were a normal feature before Trade Boards were set up; and it was suggested that in the criticism of the work of the Boards for these trades no sufficient account had been taken of unemployment due to normally recurrent seasonal depression. The charge that due regard had not been paid to differences in local conditions was implicitly admitted by a representative of the employers' side of the English Dressmaking Trade Board. It was, however, pointed out that when the Boards for the Dressmaking and Millinery Trades first fixed rates early in 1920, they found in existence statutory minimum rates of national application, which had been prescribed in March, 1919, under the Wages (Temporary Regulation) Act, 1918, and which were only slightly below the level at which they themselves settled rates a year later, when the cost of living had risen appreciably. A representative of employers interested in the Retail Dressmaking and Millinery Trades in Scotland, while alleging that the failure on the part of the Scottish Boards for these trades to make provision for local differentiation had been to some extent responsible for causing unemployment, admitted that the real causes of unemployment were much wider and deeper, and mentioned the growing popularity of ready-made articles as one of the chief causes. 33. A witness of one workers' organisation interested in the Retail Bespoke Tailoring Trade denied the existence of unemployment in the trade in Scotland and submitted letters in support of his contention from 57 Trade Union branches scattered throughout Scotland. Representatives of another workers' organisation in this trade, with a membership principally in England and Wales, ascribed the depression in the trade partly to the progress made in the production of high-class ready-made garments, but more especially to the general industrial situation, which had reduced the purchasing capacity of potential customers. 34. As regards the charges levelled against the Laundry Trade Board, a representative of the workers' side of the Board, while implicitly admitting that a reduction in the number of persons employed in the trade had taken place since the Board started to legislate, stated that the reduction had been in progress for many years previously, owing to an extensive development of the use of machinery. The operation of the Trade Board, in so far as it had tended to reduce the number of persons employed, had, it was urged, been in the direction of decasualising the industry and of giving regular employment to the workers retained. 35. Representatives of workers in the Jute and Flax Industries urged strongly that there was no relationship between the depression prevailing in their industries and the rate-fixing operations of the Trade Boards concerned. Reference was made to negotiations between employers and workers in the Jute Trade for a reduction in rates, and it was stated that employers had not been able to guarantee any improvement in trade or to give any assurance that their works would not be closed down if the reductions under consideration were accepted. Workers in the Flax Trade submitted that even if the Trade Board rates were reduced by 50 per cent. unemployment would still continue. They contended that the high price of raw flax owing to the failure of |