§ MR. MUNDELLAasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Factories and Workshops Acts Amendment Bill will apply to all Government Establishments where young persons and women are employed; and, if not, whether he will introduce a Clause making it applicable?
MR. BRUCE, in reply, said, that every Government Establishment in which manual labour was exercised by way of trade or for the purposes of gain was actually a workshop, and was subject accordingly to the regulations of the Factories and Workshops Acts. With respect to other Government Establishments where young persons and women were employed, they also were regulated by the same rules, although they were 559 not under the operation of the Acts, as it was considered essential, in order to meet cases of emergency, that the Government should have the power, when they thought proper, of dispensing with a portion of the regulations.