be fenced in in order to prevent accidents, and persons in charge of steam-engines and boilers, with a few exceptions, had to obtain certificates of competency. As regards the enforcement of these and other provisions, inspectors were authorised to enter a factory at any reasonable time, to make any pertinent inquiry and examination, to demand the production of any certificate or documents kept in pursuance of the Act, and, generally, to exercise such other powers as might be necessary for carrying it into effect. Proceedings for offences against the Act were to be taken before two or more justices, who, upon a conviction, would be guided by a prescribed scale of fines and penalties. Finally, retail shops were {134} dealt with by a provision which limited the hours during which they might be kept open; but certain categories of shops were explicitly excluded, and Municipal Councils were given the power of altering the hours upon a petition of a majority of the shopkeepers. The absence of finality in such legislation was soon shown by the demand for further restrictions, which was met by the Government by the customary expedient of the appointment of a Royal Commission. The census of 1891 had given the number of persons employed in connection with the manufacturing industries as 96,000, of whom less than a half were in registered factories. The remainder were working in shires, in laundries and dye works, in workrooms other than Chinese in which less than four persons were employed, or in their own homes. The Commission consequently, in the pursuance of their instructions to "inquire and report as to the working of the Factories and Shops Act, 1890, with regard to the alleged existence of the practice known as sweating and the alleged insanitary condition of factories and workrooms," had a wide field of investigation, but turned their attention principally to the industries in which the circumstances of the workers were believed to be most unfavourable. In the clothing industry they found that, beyond the common grievance of slackness of trade, those employed in factories had little to complain of in the matter of {135} wages, but that among the outworkers, owing to the depression, competition had reduced the rate of pay to the lowest level compatible with continued existence. They were informed of many cases, which have been corroborated by factory inspectors and others, of women who, working from twelve to fourteen hours a day, were unable to earn more than ten or twelve shillings in a week. It was contended that, as in other countries, the competition was rendered more acute by those who were not dependent upon the work for a livelihood. Another result of this competition was seen in the policy pursued by several large firms which had closed factories built at a heavy cost and were relying upon their operations being carried on by contractors, because they had been