Aug. 5.
Tue report of the Child Labour Commission of the Shanghai Municipal Council is easily one of the most significant documents published in this country. It is the first survey' of its kind to be made in China.
It is the first attempt scientifically to deal with any phase of the Labour question, which is constantly of more importance as industry in China ceases to be individual handicraft and becomes modern mass-production.
The Commission was appoint-recommend, if any, regulations to be "applied to} child labour in the foreign Settlement of Shanghai, having regard to practical considera tions and to local conditions generally." The Commission, which was presided over by Mr. H. Lipson Ward, and which had as members such experts in social legislation as Dame Adelaide Anderson and "Miss Mary A. Dingman, found that' little interest was taken in. its! proceedings, and that witnesses were slow to come forward with testimony and suggestions. This is not at all surprising.
For this commission was! unusual, both in its appointment, and its objects. As a rule, social reforms are wrung from the employers by the workers. Governments, in the past, have usually acceded to the minimum demands of Jabour after long struggles involving the general community in annoyances and disorder. Even the state socialism of Germany, which was so praised before the war, was the culmination of political revolutions and was designed, not altogether to help the workers, but to produce an efficient war machine, in which these workers would be fattened cannon fodder.
Here, on the other hand, a municipal body, in which the employers have a large voice while the labourers are almost non-represented, voluntarily undertakes to improve the conditions of labour, even against the wishes of many of the Jabourers themselves, who, unfortunately, are too ignorant to understand their own best! interests and to realize how. have in all cases been voluntary: and have been prompted by 2 desire to reproduce, as far as is consistent with local conditions, the progress made in these fields in their own countries.
They are, however, in a difficult position vis-a-vis of employers outside the Settlement because, as the Commission indicates, there is no central authority in China capable of enforcing' social legislation. Foreign employers in Shanghai cannot! afford to improve conditions: when Chinese employers Chapei or Nanziang or Kashing. will not make improvements. Such improvements may become: commercially prohibitive, so that! the goods of a humane firm would cost so much more than. the goods of the inhumane firm, In a word, since the days of Robert Owen, it has been found that to make social reforms effective, the regulations have to be applied impartially to all engaged in similar industries. Reforms are' better accomplished by legislation than by individual action, which at best depends upon the life of the benevolent: person. General legislation is. impossible if Shanghai alone is, willing to enforce the laboitr regulation, while there is no government in Peking whose voice will carry beyond the) walls of -that delightful city. In a word, the recommendations of the Commission can only be. enforced in Shanghai at a great sacrifice unless the Chinese!
Government is in a position to have them obeyed throughout! the country, or unless the! provincial governments of Kiang-ssu and Chekiang are willing to join with the foreigners in Shanghai in doing something' constructive for the Chinese people.
'This should riot be difficult, blood is truly thicker than' water. For those who would benefit by any reforms are the Chinese people, the poor souls who come in from the country, half starved by over-population, unscientific farming, floods, droughts, bandits and oth sources of misery to them. Yet, the officials of China, Chinese themselves, have utterly disregarded the condition of their fellow-men, perhaps—_becatise under the ancient handicraft' system children laboured soon as they could, just as on the farm the little lad rides water-buffalo as soon as he can. tay on its fly-ridden back.
The problem of child labour is not altogether exceptional to China, It has existed everywhere. It has always existed. The economic and social condi tions of the landless have usually been stich that the—little additional income brought home by the child was necessary that the household might not starve. But the introduction of the factory system, of power-driven machinery, of mass. production and the acceleration of human efficiency, had made it possible crying need as in China that} athing be done to save the children who enter into the factory from the horrible conditions under which they spend the most impressionable years of their lives.
Take this picture from the Commission's report:
"The Commission saw children at work who could not have been more than six or seven years of age. Some of these children are not' on the pay-roll, but allowed to be brought by their mothers in order. that they may' standards of civilization.—For an eight-hour day is considered a full day for adults in the countries from which most bf the commissioners came. They compromised with local conditions and local ideals. Theyedesived to write a report which could not be rejected even by the most avaricious and hard-hearted. A twelve-hour day means that the child is to have no opportunities for education unless it be during the compulsory rest of one hour, cee the cuntitions' during" the [one will fall fast asleep from the hers in order that they may) ven more than likely the litre
hight shife hour, according to weariness of his toil, It means western ideas, are most unusual, Rows of baskets, containing babies and children, sleeping or awake as the case may be, lie placed between the rapidly moving or noisy machinery. Young children, who. are supposed to be working, but have been overcome by fatigue or who have taken advantage of the absence of adequate super:
lie asleep in every corner, some in the open, others hidde in baskets under a covering of raw cotton.
The discipline appears to lax and those in charge seem to wink at much that goes on in this respect."
It is impossible to believe that any children in this age of mechanical substitutes for human toil should have to spend their first years under such condi tions, bound as they are to become influenced by the hardness of life, the deceit that makes for safety, the selfishness that brings another grain of rice to the bowl.
If the author ties of Kiangsu will ce-operate with the foreigners who manage Shanghai, these things shall no longer be. in this part of China. that the child will grow up with-ping, wich males Jack " dol boy, The Commission, in ma such a report, simply, tndtented the beginning, for compulsory education must come to China as it has come to every civilized country. And when it comes even a ten-hour day for children will be too long.
In this connexion it is interesting to note that some foreign employers have provided educational facilities for their workers and thal a group of employers Yangtszepoo support the Yangtszepoo Social Settlement which n provides educational facilities for workers between shifts. The Commission's recommendation that children be prohibited from Working during the night when they may be employed during the day, requires rio comment. "The Commission considers night work for children such a serious evil" that it is hardly understandable why they want to look into it again after a four years' period, The time to stop night work for children is immediately, as soon as the ratepayers authorize action
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.