944
566.
-59-
(h) The fee-paying employment agencies.
(i) The provision of food as part of wages and lodging standards observed by employers where these are provided.
(j) The employment of disabled persons.
(k) Share fishing and indebtedness.
This list is by no means complete but indicates the kind of information which should be available in the Department of Labour, which should be regarded by the Government as the central repository of information on wages and conditions of employment.
567.
Objective research into labour problems is a constant necessity if progress is to be made and risks of public disorder and indiscipline resulting from the natural process of change, minimised.
360.
It is accordingly recommended that the staff of the Departine nt of Labour be maintained in future at such a level that a competent officer can be made available to carry out work of this kind.
369.
XXIV. HONG KONG INDUSTRIES
The factories and workshops registered under the Factories and Workshops Ordinance 1937 cover as many as 167 separate industries (see Appendix 12) and there are numerous small factories, covering an even wider field of activity, without the scope or the Ordinance.
370. Hong Kong is undergoing an industrial revolution. Froduction by the most primitive methods operates side by side with the most up to date and modern plants. New modern factories are constantly being established and existing plants brought up to date. As a result of this, as time goes on, the smaller and less efficient under- takings will be unable to compete and will be forced out of business. Even now the majority of the smaller firms are only managing to continue to operate by practising every possible economy, including the payment of bare subsistence wages. In some of the smaller firms, however, under-employment is apparent and this is often due to the readiness of the proprietors to provide some kind of work for even remote members of the family group. Fre- quently I have seen eight or nine workers performing a job which could easily have been done by three. In fuct the owners have admitted that they were employing far more workers than necessary and explained this by saying t that it had been incumbent on them to find work for relatives who would otherwise be unemployed.
As a
571.
The importance of loyalty to the family group in the eyes of the average Chinese is amazing. result of this practice wage rates tend to bo very low. In one instance where the Department of Labour had re- quired the dismantling of a spinning machiner on the first floor of a shop house, the machine had been re- placed by some sixteen women operating primitivo hand- made bamboo spinning wheels. These women workers were
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