In Scotland Miss Vines says that the largest proportion of complaints relates to excessive hours of employment, while on investigation they are found sometimes to be within the legal limits, and "there is no doubt that the working of the full permissible period of employment does sometimes entail an intolerable strain on the workers." _Miss Meiklejohn._--There has again been in West London a marked decrease in the overtime reported this year. The opinion seems to be that systematic overtime in the season does not really help forward the work, and that the extension should be used, as was intended, in an emergency only. There is a tendency to shorten the ordinary working hours, as well as to work as little overtime as possible. 8. _Employment of Women before and after Childbirth._ There can be little doubt that provision of maternity benefit under the Insurance Act has materially lightened the burden of compliance with the limit of women for four weeks after childbirth before they may return to industrial employment. Complaints of breach of s. 61 have dropped to eight in 1913, and complaints (outside the scope of the section) of employment just before confinement have dropped to one. Even in Dundee, where this evil of heavy employment of child-bearing women has been probably the worst in the kingdom, an improvement of the situation is seen. _Miss Vines._--I visited a group of twelve jute-mill working mothers within a month after their confinement and found that only one of them had returned to work, nine of the mothers were married and experiencing the good effects of the Insurance Act benefit. The unmarried women were, of course, getting less benefit, and were not so well off; one of them worked as a jute spinner in a jute mill till 6 P.M. on the night her baby was born. 9. _Truck Act._ _Principal._--The illustrations sent me of the mass of work done in 1913 under the modern part of the law relating to truck are too numerous to be reproduced here. Typical instances must be selected from different industrial centres for the main points of (_a_) disciplinary fines, (_b_) deductions or payments for damage, short weight, etc., (_c_) deductions or payments for power, materials or anything supplied in relation to labour of the worker; abuses of the "bonus" system may be connected with (_a_) or (_b_). The main features of these illustrations are the poverty of the workers, the rigidity and poverty of mind that controls workers by such methods, and the need for fresh and living ideas to sweep away all these defective, obsolete ways of control. _Disciplinary Fines._