CO129-623-1 Rubber Industry- report and correspondence on the labour situation 1-4-1950 - 31-1-1951 — Page 4

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Self-interest is often a stimulant to an otherwise sluggish social conscience! The definition of 'sweating' should not create much difficulty but applying it to the particular conditions of Hong Kong certainly will. The phrase used to cover 'sweated' trades in this country at the time of the introduction of the first Trade Boards Act (1909) was-any branch of a trade where the rate of wages applying was "exceptionally low as compared with that in other employments". The agitation of the 1885-90 period which resulted in the setting up of a Select Committee of the House of Lords was directed at those trades where wages paid 'were not reasonable and on which no person could be expected to subsist'. A good definition of q'sweated' trade might well combine the two and might read "A trade or industry or a branch of any trade or industry where the rate of wages prevailing is exceptionally low as compared with that in other employments and on which no person could reasonably be expected to subsist."

2.

I agree that these enquiries absorb a lot of time but it may well be that a state of things exists in the rubber trade in Hong Kong which requires some corrective action. The trade unions are very weak outside the public utilities and collective bargaining machinery is hardly developed at all;; moreover, the Governor's powers to establish statutory wage- fixing machinery have not yet been used. In the circumstances, I think we are justified in asking the Government of Hong Kong for some infomation about (b) (c) and (d) of (1) opposite, except that (d) might be worded "Are wages, even though low by United Kingdom standards, reasonable by comparison with other trades in Hong Kong and adjacent Far Eastem territories."

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