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ANNEXE B.
Report of the Inspector of Factories for the year 1927.
The ordinance regulating the employment of children in factories has now been in force for five years and it may not be out of place to survey briefly the results attained.
This ordinance (No. 22 of 1922) was the first piece of constructive factory legislation introduced into this Colony and to the Chinese factory owners was an entirely new departure. In the earlier stages a large number of the younger children were dismissed from the factories, the owners finding it easier to dispense with child labour than to comply with the requirements of the ordinance as to hours of work, overtime and holidays. The children so dismissed have not been replaced and it is now admitted that the absence of child labour need not affect output.
In factories where children have been retained the conditions of the ordinance have been accepted without serious objection. No European firms in the Colony employ children under the age of 15 years and the total number of children employed has been reduced until at present there are not more than one hundred and fifty children under that age regularly at work in factories. This large reduction is partly accounted for by the depression in the knitting trade and cigarette factories. No new beginners have been taken on during the year and many of those who have hitherto been registered under the ordinance have now outgrown the age of registration.
The cigarette factories which formerly employed a large number of young girls were closed for a considerable part of the year: production has now been resumed but on a limited scale and where formerly 160 children were engaged in packing cigarettes there are now but 15 at work. Apart from the cigarette trade the knitting factories of Kowloon are the principal employers of women and girls. Some of these have closed down during the year; others have found markets elsewhere to replace those lost and have built up a considerable export trade with Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. The trade outlook appears brighter and some firms are installing new machinery and plant in anticipation of improved trade in the near future.
Dangerous Trades.-Glass making, boiler chipping and firework making. Visits of inspection have been made to all places where these trades are carried on. No breaches of the ordinance have occurred.
Building material etc.-The practice of engaging children to carry coal, bricks and sand up the Peak, once so common and the subject of so much comment, has almost entirely ceased. Isolated cases still occur where children are found helping their mothers, but they are not now regularly employed and engaged by contractors for this work.