situation to be the constitution of a league of nations applying an international labor legislation.

The International Trade Union Conference met at Berne and asks the league of nations to institute and apply an international system fixing the conditions of labor.

The present conference supports the decisions of the Trades Union Conference of Leeds (1917) and Berne (1918), and asks that their essential provisions, already applied in several countries, be applied internationally and be inscribed in the treaty of peace as an international charter of labor, as follows:

(1) The conference considers primary instruction obligatory in all countries; pre-apprenticeship and general industrial training should be established everywhere. Higher schooling should be free and accessible to all, special aptitudes and aspirations not being blocked by the material conditions of life in which the children may be placed.

Children below fifteen shall not be employed in industry.

(2) Children from fifteen to eighteen shall not be employed more than six hours per day, with one and one-half hours rest after four hours of work. For two hours per day both sexes shall take technical continuation courses to be established for them between six in the morning and eight at night.

The employment of children shall be prohibited (a) between eight at night and six in the morning; (b) Sundays and holidays; (c) in unhealthy industries; (d) in underground mines.

(3) Women workers shall have a Saturday half-holiday and shall work only four hours that day; exceptions which are necessary in certain industries being compensated by a halfholiday some other day in the week.

Women workers shall not work at night. Employers shall be forbidden to furnish home work after the regular hours of labor. Women shall not be employed in dangerous industries where it is impossible to create sufficiently healthy conditions, as, for instance, in mines where the handling of harmful matters is injurious to the health of weak constitutions.

The employment of women for four weeks before and six weeks after maternity shall be forbidden.

A system of maternity insurance shall be established in all countries and benefits paid in case of illness. Women's work shall be free and based on the principle of equal pay for equal work.

(4) The hours of labor shall not exceed 8 per day and

44 per week.

Night work, after eight at night and before six in the morning shall be forbidden except where the technical nature of the work makes it inevitable.

Where night work is necessary, the pay shall be higher.

(5) The Saturday half-holiday shall be introduced in all countries. The weekly repose shall be of at least 36 hours. When the nature of the work requires Sunday work, the weekly repose shall be arranged during the week. In industries of continuous fire, the work shall be arranged so as to give the workers holidays on alternative Sundays.

(6) To protect health, and as a guarantee against accidents, the hours of labor shall be reduced at least eight hours in very dangerous industries. The use of harmful matters is forbidden wherever they can be replaced. A list of prohibited industrial poisons shall be made; the use of white phosphorus and white lead in decoration shall be forbidden. A system of automatic coupling shall be applied internationally on the railroads.

All laws and regulations concerning industrial labor shall in principle be applied to home work; the same is true for social insurance.

(7) Work which may poison or injure health shall be excluded from homes.

(8) Food industries, including the manufacture of boxes and sacks to contain food, shall be excluded from homes.

(9) Infectious diseases must be reported in home industries and work forbidden in houses where these diseases are found. Medical inspection shall be established.

Lists of workers employed in home industries shall be drawn up and they shall have salary-books. Committees of representatives of employers and workers shall be formed wherever home industries prevail, and they shall have legal power to fix wages. Such wage-scales shall be posted in the work-places.

Workers shall have the right to organize in all countries. Laws and decrees submitting certain classes of workers to special conditions or depriving them of the right of organization shall be abrogated. Emigrant workers shall have the same rights as native workers, including the right to join unions and to strike. Punishment shall be provided for those who oppose the rights of organization and association.

Foreign workers have the right to the wages and conditions of labor which have been agreed upon between the unions and employers in all branches of industry. Lacking such agree

ments, they shall have the right to the wages current in the region.

(10) Emigration shall in general be free. Exceptions shall be made in the following cases:

(a) A state may temporarily limit immigration during a period of economic depression in order to protect the native as well as the foreign workers.

(b) Any state may control immigration in the interest of public hygiene and may temporarily forbid it.

(c) States may demand of immigrants that they be able to read and write in their own tongue-this in order to maintain a minimum of popular education and to render possible the application of labor laws in industries employing immigrants.

The contracting states agree to introduce without delay laws forbidding engaging workers by contract to work in other countries, thus putting an end to the abuse of private employment agencies. Such contracts shall be forbidden.

The contracting states agree to prepare statistics of the labor market based upon local reports, mutually exchanging information as often as possible through a central international office. These statistics shall be communicated to the trade unions of each country. No worker shall be expelled from any country for trade union activity; he shall have the righ appealing to the courts against expulsion.

If wages be insufficient to assure a normal life, and if it be impossible for employers and workers to agree, the government shall institute mixed commissions to establish minimum wages.

(11) In order to combat unemployment, the trade union centers of the various countries shall maintain relations and exchange information relative to the demand and supply of labor. A system of insurance against unemployment shall be established in all countries.

(12) All workers shall be insured by the state against industrial accidents. The benefits paid the injured or their dependents shall be fixed according to the laws of the worker's country of origin. Old age and invalidity insurance, and insurance for widows and orphans, shall be established with equal benefits for natives and foreigners.

A foreign worker may, on departure, if he has been victim of an industrial accident, receive a lump sum-if such an agree

ment has been concluded between the country where he has been working and his country of origin.

(13) A special international code shall be created for the protection of seamen, to be applied in collaboration with the seamen's unions.

(14) The application of these measures shall in each country be confined to labor inspectors. These inspectors shall be chosen among technical, sanitary and economic experts and aided by the workers of both sexes.

The trade unions shall watch over the application of the labor laws. Employers employing more than four workers speaking foreign tongues shall post the labor regulations and other important notices in the respective languages and shall at their own expense teach the language of the country to their employes.

(15) To apply the international labor legislation the contracting states shall create a permanent commission constituted half of delegates of the states which are members of the league of nations and half of delegates of the international federation of labor unions.

This permanent commission shall convoke annually the delegations of the contracting states to perfect the international labor legislation. This conference should be one-half composed of representatives of the organized workers of each country; it shall have power to make resolutions having the force of international law.

The Permanent Commission shall collaborate with the International Labor Office at Bâle and with the International Union of Trade Unions.

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