The Eight-hours Day.

As is well known there is no legislation in any of the Australian Colonies limiting the hours of adult male labour generally, but it is an accepted custom, and perhaps the most stringent rule of all trade unions, that eight hours constitute a working day.

There are laws not dissimilar to our own limiting the hours of female and child labour in factories and elsewhere. A factory in New Zealand, it may be noted, is any place where three or more persons are employed, and a supply of drinking water must be provided. There are regulations as to the minimum space of cubic air to each worker, and in large factories a place outside the work room must be found for women's meals.

In the mining industry persons in charge of steam machinery are prohibited from working more than eight hours, exclusive of the time necessary for raising and exhausting steam.