outbreaks by prisoners who as a class were less easy to control than those in Local Prisons. At the same time the vexed question of competition with free labour was examined, and representatives of trade unions who appeared before the Committee, while admitting that industrial labour was morally and physically beneficial to prisoners, only urged that direct competition with outside labour should not be allowed at cutting prices. They only asked that goods should not be sold below the market price for the district or the standard price elsewhere, and that every consideration should be shown to the special circumstances of particular industries outside so as to avoid all undue interference with the wages and employment of free labour. The inquiry of 1894 marks a new starting point in the history of Prison labour in Local Prisons, and steps were at once taken to give effect to the leading recommendations of the Committee, which were broadly in favour of the abolition of all forms of unproductive labour, cranks, treadmills &c., and of a system of associated, in lieu of cellular, labour. The problems involved were costly and difficult and only slow progress could be made. The provision of workshops alone in Prisons built for the most part on the cellular plan and for strictly cellular purposes was a considerable undertaking. The abolition of cranks, treadmills, &c., involved the necessity of finding work which should be of an onerous and disagreeable character for prisoners during the first month. The collapse of the matmaking and oakum trades increased this difficulty. The form in which the labour statistics had hitherto been rendered was thoroughly revised and the out-of-date labour price list, which had previously been in use as the basis of valuation in Convict Prisons, was abolished and a new list brought into operation on the 1st April, 1897, applicable to both Convict and Local Prisons. The old-fashioned "per diem" rates which had previously obtained in Local Prisons and which often had no relation whatever to the amount of work done, giving rise to fallacious valuations, were replaced with what are called "per article" rates, the actual quantity of work performed being now the basis of valuation. The institution of the new rates in connection with the new scale of the tasks required of prisoners now enables accurate calculation to be made as to the exact degree of industrial output and efficiency at each Prison. At the same time, a scheme was introduced for the payment of special allowances to officers engaged in instructing prisoners. The effect of these changes became at once apparent, and by the year 1900, there was an increase of no less than thirty per cent. in the average earnings per prisoner, as compared with what was earned four years previously when the revision of manufacturing methods was first taken in hand, and in that year the entire value of the labour in all branches, manufactures,