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 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
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REPORT 
 
 TO 
 
 THE HONOURABLE THE POSTMASTER GENERAL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 METHODS ADOPTED IN CANADA IN THE CARRYING OCT OF GOVERNMENT 
 
 CLOTHING CONTRACTS t 
 
 BY 
 
 W. L. MACKENZIE KING, M.A., LL.B. 
 
 ( »P T 
 
 OTTAWA 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING BUREAU 
 
 1900 
 
- 
 
 
 REPORT 
 
 TO 
 
 THE HONOURABLE THE POSTMASTER GENERAL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 METHODS ADOPTED IN CANADA IN THE CARRYING 0UT_0F_G0VERNMENT 
 
 CLOTHING CONTRACTS 
 
 BY 
 
 W. L. MACKENZIE KING, M.A., LL.B. 
 
 OTTAWA 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING BUREAU 
 
 1899 
 
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 RETURN" 
 
 (87) 
 
 To an Order of the House of Commons, dated the 18th April, 
 1898, for a copy of the report of W. L. Mackenzie King, re- 
 specting the manufacture of militia clothing in Canada. 
 
 By order, 
 
 R. W. SCOTT, 
 
 Secretary of State. * 
 
 8,000-1 1 -9-'oo. 
 
 V/2 
 
 M8669G4 
 
REPORT TO THE HON. THE POSTMASTER GENERAL 
 ON THE METHODS ADOPTED IN CANADA IN 
 THE CARRYING OUT OF THE GOV- 
 ERNMENT CLOTHING CON- 
 TRACTS. 
 
 To the Hon. William Mulock, M.P., 
 
 Postmaster General, etc., Ottawa. 
 
 Sir, — In accordance with the instructions contained in your 
 communication to me dated 21st September, 1897, I have now 
 the honour to submit a report of the results of my investigations 
 into the methods heretofore adopted in Canada in the carrying 
 out of Government clothing contracts. This investigation was 
 first entered upon during the summer of 1897, m connection 
 with certain subjects of economic study in which I was then 
 engaged, but the inquiry was not persued in detail until the re- 
 ceipt of your communication just referred to. In this commu- 
 nication, as you may remember, you stated, that it having been 
 intimated to you that the ' sweating system/ with other objection- 
 able conditions, had accompanied for many years the manufac- 
 ture of uniforms for post office officials, the militia, the mounted 
 police, &c, you were desirous of ascertaining to what extent, if 
 any, such information was well founded, with a view to consider- 
 ing whether the public interest did not demand that future con- 
 tracts should contain stipulations securing the performance of 
 such contracts in a manner free from all such objectionable 
 features. In compliance with your request for a report on the 
 whole matter, and acting on the directions contained in your com- 
 munication, I afterwards extended the scope of my investigation 
 so as to embrace the cities of Montreal, Toronto and Hamilton, 
 in which most of the Government contracts, during the past ten 
 years, have been executed. I visited each of those cities person- 
 ally and made careful inquiries as to the actual methods by which 
 the various contracts had been carried out, the places where and 
 
 5 
 
6 REPORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 the conditions under which the work was done, the persons em- 
 ployed and their mode of employment, the wages and the prices 
 paid, &c, &c. For this purpose I sought and obtained inter- 
 views with the sub-contractors and wage-earners, and procured 
 from them the facts and information generally which are embo- 
 died in this report and which, I have every reason to believe, are 
 perfectly trustworthy. 
 
 As you can well understand, the conduct of such an investi- 
 gation was attended with considerable difficulty. Apart from the 
 time and trouble involved in discovering reliable sources of in- 
 formation, the information itself, when imparted, had to be scru- 
 tinized with care, and verified, as far as possible, in every material 
 particular. Not having authority to compel testimony or state- 
 ments of any kind, I was necessarily dependent upon voluntary 
 evidence, which was given, in many cases, with great reluctance. 
 The facts thus disclosed are none the less valuable, and may pos- 
 sibly be regarded as giving additional significance and weight to 
 the conclusions arrived at. For obvious reasons I did not feel 
 at liberty to interrogate any of the Government contractors. As 
 the result proved, this was scarcely necessary, as in no instance 
 did I find that the clothing, which was the subject of contract, had 
 been made up entirely upon the premises of the firms which were 
 awarded the work. In every instance the system of sub-contract- 
 ing prevailed. 
 
 This system of sub-contracting took one of three forms : (a.) 
 The cloth, already cut, was given out by the Government con- 
 tractor to the sub-contractor who, in return, employed hands to 
 work in his shop, which was unconnected in any way with his 
 residence ; or (b) the cloth so cut was given out by the Govern- 
 ment contractor to a sub-contractor who, in return, employed 
 hands to work in his own residence, part of which was utilized as 
 the workshop ; or (c) the cloth so cut was given out by the Gov- 
 ernment contractor to individuals to be made up by them in their 
 homes, and in the making up of which only members of the 
 family were, as a rule, engaged. All three methods were em- 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 7 
 
 ployed by most of the firms. In the last two cases (b and c) it 
 was difficult to discover the homes of the persons who had been 
 engaged in the work. This was more particularly the case in 
 Montreal, where many of the garments were made up in the 
 French Canadian villages, some of which are many miles distant 
 from the city. In the first case (a) it was no less difficult to find 
 the sub-contractors. The old firms no longer having the Gov- 
 ernment contracts, the work of the sub-contractors had been 
 discontinued, and some of the sub-contractors had left the city 
 for other parts of the country. Moreover, as all the contracts 
 investigated were let in past years, it was not easy to seek out the 
 employees of the sub-contractors, namely, the men, women or 
 girls who had actually executed the work required on the clothing. 
 I was able, nevertheless, to meet most of the sub-contractors, to 
 see personally a large number of their employees, to visit a good 
 many of the homes in which clothing under the Government 
 contracts had been made, and to ascertain from the men, women 
 and children engaged in the work the prices paid for the garments 
 which they made, or the wages received for the services rendered. 
 From some of the sub-contractors I was able to procure but little 
 information ; from others I received pactically all that was desir- 
 ed. The same is true of their employees, and of the men and 
 women who worked in their own homes. In some cases I was 
 shown books, receipts and vouchers corroborative of individual 
 statements. Of the evidence gathered in this way I have, in this 
 report, discarded everything which was at all doubtful, and have 
 confined myself only to statements which were either corrobor- 
 ated or verified from independent sources. This must be my 
 excuse, if any be necessary, for the brevity of the report, and for 
 its lack of completeness in some matters of detail. I present 
 only such facts as can be established, if need be, by the testimony 
 of the parties concerned. 
 
 You will observe that the names of those who have furnished 
 information are omitted. There are obvious reasons why the 
 identity of the informants should not be publicly disclosed. The 
 
8 REPORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 fear of instant dismissal from employment was given by many as 
 the sole reason for their unwillingness to furnish the facts, and 
 the same or a similar feeling undoubtedly accounted for the re- 
 luctance shown by the others. The dread of their employers, 
 entertained by men and women alike, was in many instances dis- 
 tressing, It was only, in the majority of cases, upon the distinct 
 assurance that the information given would not be used to the 
 prejudice of the parties giving it, but had as its object the better- 
 ing of their industrial condition, that the information was obtain- 
 ed. Feeling that faith must be kept with all of my informants I 
 have, as you will notice, suppressed the names. But in order 
 that the Government may be satisfied that the statements upon 
 which the report is based are authentic, I submit a private list of 
 the names and addresses of my informants, consecutively num- 
 bered, so that by referring, in any particular case, to the number 
 indicated, the sources of information, and the authenticity of the 
 statements made, may be clearly traced. This list is, of course, 
 confidential, and is for the information of the Government only. 
 
 As my inquiry was particularly directed towards ascertaining 
 wheteher or not the ' sweating system/ with other objectionable 
 conditions, had accompanied the manufacture of Government 
 clothing, I may here state what I believe to be the correct mean- 
 ing of that term, in order that it may be clear that I do not place 
 an interpretation of my own on the facts in question. As I un- 
 derstand it, the term l sweating system* is specifically used to 
 describe a condition of labour in which a maximum amount of 
 work, in a given time, is performed for a minimum wage, and, 
 it may be added, as a general thing, under conditions in which 
 the ordinary rules of health and comfort are disregarded. It is 
 almost invariably associated with contract work, and it is inten- 
 sified by sub-contracting in shops conducted in homes. Whether 
 these conditions have existed in the manufacture of Government 
 clothing will appear from the facts and circumstances connected 
 with, or incident to, the performance of the contracts, which I 
 shall now present in detail. 
 
OX GOVERXMEXT CLOTHIXG COXTRACTS 
 
 L— THE METHODS EMPLOYED. 
 
 For a period of over ten years past, and, in fact, until within 
 a year or so ago, certain firms in Montreal were awarded large 
 contracts for the manufacture of Government clothing for the 
 militia and mounted police. Similar contracts were let to a firm 
 in Toronto, and also to a firm in Hamilton which had, in addi- 
 tion, a large contract for the .supply of clothing for the post office 
 letter carriers. With respect to all these contracts by the firms 
 in question, the system of sub-contracting, as already described, 
 was resorted to. In no case did it appear that the Government 
 contractor had the clothing manufactured on his own premises, 
 or even in such a way as to be subject to his immediate super- 
 vision. With the exception of the cutting of the cloth, which 
 is done in most cases almost entirely by machinery, and the 
 making of the button holes and, in some cases, the putting on of 
 the buttons, in both of which processes machines are also used, 
 the whole work of manufacture was carried on in places not 
 under the control or supervision of the Government contractors. 
 In the making of practically all of the tunics of the militia and 
 mounted police, the work was done in shops owned by sub-con- 
 tractors, who had agreed with the Government contractor to 
 make up the goods at a specific price or sum. Practically all of 
 the riding breeches for the artillery, cavalry and mounted infantry 
 were made up in the same way. The trousers, however, some of 
 the tunics, and many of the great coats, in the making of which 
 less skill is required, were let out direct to women in their homes 
 to be made up at so much apiece. In the case of the clothing 
 of the post office letter carriers, the overcoats and tunics were 
 made in his shop by a sub-contractor, while the trousers were made 
 by women in their own homes. Wherever a sub-contractor was 
 given the work he, in turn, employed a number of hands to work 
 for him. A few of these — very few, in fact — were men ; by far 
 
 2 
 
10 REPORT OF W. I. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 the largest number were women and girls. In several instances 
 the sub-contractor was a woman. Wherever the work was given 
 out to persons in their homes it was generally women who were 
 employed. In some cases the different members of the family 
 assisted in the sewing, and in a great many cases, one, two, three 
 or more strangers, usually young women or girls, were brought 
 from the neighbourhood and paid a small sum for their services 
 by the week or piece. It was no uncommon thing for young 
 women and boys to give their services gratis for a certain time 
 to the sub-contractor, either in the home or the shop, and thus 
 serve a species of apprenticeship on the supposed condition of 
 learning the trade. Others began the work, or continued it at 
 the rate of a few cents a day. There were instances also where, 
 after serving in this way for, a certain period, the workers were 
 discharged at the expiration of their term of so-called apprentice- 
 ship. So far, therefore, as the general method adopted in the 
 manufacture of Government clothing are concerned, it would 
 appear that they were carried out almost entirely on the sub-con- 
 tracting plan, that practically none of the clothing was made 
 upon the premises of the Government contractor, that the latter 
 exercised no immediate supervision over the work, and that, in 
 fact, by far the greatest part of the Government clothing was 
 made by women and girls in their homes or in the shops as the 
 hired hands of sub-contractors. 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 11 
 
 II.— WAGES AND PRICES. 
 
 (A.) — THE CONTRACTS IN MONTREAL. 
 
 During the past ten years contracts on Government clothing 
 were let to four different firms in Montreal. Two of these con- 
 tracts were comparatively small, but the other two were among 
 the largest awarded by the Government. They comprised prac- 
 tically all the kinds of uniform clothing required for the militia 
 and mounted police. In no instance that I could discover were 
 the garments made up entirely on the premises of the Govern- 
 ment contractors. The heavy cavalry great coats, and some of 
 the military tunics and riding breeches were made by sub-con- 
 tractors working in their shops. Many of the great coats, for 
 example, those for the infantry, and some of the tunics and trou- 
 sers, were made up by women in their homes, partly in the city 
 itself, but principally in the neighbournig villages. The making 
 up of the cavalry great coats was let by the firm which received 
 the contract to a sub-contractor who agreed to make them up for 
 one dollar each. He received the cloth already cut and also the 
 thread, but was required to do all the sewing and pressing in the 
 manufacture of the coat, including the work on the linings, 
 pockets, a large cape, buttons, buckles, hooks and eyes, &c. The 
 making of the button holes was alone excepted, this being done 
 by machines at less than one cent apiece on the premises of the 
 original contractors. This sub-contractor had his own shop in 
 the city, and, while working on these coats, usually employed 
 from eighteen to twenty hands. Seven or eight of these were 
 men, and the rest young women and girls. As was invariably the 
 case, the men received from two to four times the remuneration 
 of the women, although it was generally admitted that the work 
 performed could not have been done any better by the men, while 
 in some cases it was thought that it was done decidedly better 
 by the women. In most of the shops a few men had been em- 
 2V2 
 
12 REPORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 ployed to do the pressing, which is heavy work, but in some 
 instances women had been engaged as pressers also, occasion- 
 ally men had operated the sewing machines, but this work, as 
 a general thing, had been performed by women. It was only in 
 exceptional cases that men had been employed to do the felling, 
 i.e., the laying of a seam or hem, and sewing it down level with 
 the cloth. In the course of interviews with a large number of 
 the hands who had worked in the shop in question, I learned that 
 the best paid workmen had received twelve dollars a week, and 
 sometimes a little more ; the other men had received nine and 
 ten dollars, and in some cases seven and eight dollars a week. 
 This statement of the wages given by the employees corres- 
 ponded, for the most part, with the statement given by the sub- 
 contractor himself, except that the latter gave the highest figures 
 he had ever paid which, as a rule, were above his customary wage. 
 
 These wages, it should be mentioned, were the best the men 
 had ever received for any considerable length of time, many of 
 them having commenced at three dollars a week and received a 
 gradual increase as time went on. The wages of the k women 
 were much lower. According to the sub-contractor's statement, 
 three dollars a week was considered a good wage for a woman, 
 and this was what he himself had paid the majority of his female 
 hands. The best paid woman, he said, had received five dollars 
 and thirty cents a week, the lowest two dollars a week ; and it 
 was possible, he thought, to secure working girls at one dollar 
 and fifty cents a week. I was informed by the young woman 
 who was said to have been paid the highest wage that, for the first 
 year, she had received three dollars, for the second year three 
 dollars and fifty cents, and for the third year four dollars a week, 
 and that only in her fourth year of service for this sub-contractor 
 had she received four dollars and fifty cents a week. This was the 
 highest wage that had ever been paid her while in his employ. 
 While two or three of the best paid women had received four 
 dollars a week, some had been paid three dolla/s, others two 
 dollars and fifty cents, other two dollars and twenty-five cents, 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 13 
 
 and a number two dollars a week. For this wage men and women 
 alike were required to work sixty hours a week, that is, from 
 seven o'clock in the morning till twelve noon, and from one till 
 six o'clock in the afternoon for six days of the week. The men 
 being Jews did not work on Saturday, but worked on Sundays. 
 The women worked on Saturdays but not on Sundays. There 
 was no half-holiday on Saturday. In the shop, as well as in 
 others, it was not an uncommon thing for the hands to be changed 
 occasionally, so that in this way it was possible to retain some 
 of the workers at a low rate of wages all the time. The ages of 
 the women employed in this shop ranged as nearly as I could 
 ascertain, from eighteen to twenty-five years, one or two being 
 older than twenty-five. 
 
 The riding breeches for the cavalry, artillery and mounted 
 infantry were made by sub-contractors who converted part of 
 their homes into workshops and employed hands to assist in the 
 making. One sub-contractor who appears to have performed a 
 large part of the whole work turned out, was paid, for the making 
 of the riding breeches, fifty cents a pair. He had the cloth deliv- 
 ered to him already cut, and was supplied with thread, but the 
 entire work, with the exception of the button-hole making, he 
 was obliged to do himself. He had also to send for the cloth and 
 deliver the manufactured goods at his own expense. During the 
 busy season he employed about five men and nineteen women. 
 The men worked six days of the week, from seven o'clock in the 
 morning till six in the evening, with an intermission of an hour 
 at noon. The best paid hands received six dollars a week, the 
 others five dollars. The wages of the women were much less. 
 Accordng to the sub-contractor's statement, some of the women 
 and girls received one dollar and twenty-five cents, others two 
 dollars, and the rest three dollars a week. They worked by the 
 piece, and if they cared to work overtime they were allowed to 
 do so and thereby increase their earnings. A number of them, 
 particalarly in, the summer months, were accustomed to come 
 to the shop a^ six o'clock in the morning and work there till 
 
14 REFORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE RING 
 
 after nine o'clock at night. Occasionally, they brought with them 
 food for both lunch and supper and ate it in the shop. Others, 
 instead of working overtime in the shop, took the different ma- 
 terials with them to their homes, and worked on them there 
 during the evenings. The most that the best paid hands appear 
 to have made by thus working overtime was about five dollars a 
 week. A good many of the females employed in the shop were 
 under twenty years of age ; some were scarcely fifteen, while 
 others were thirty, or thereabouts. 
 
 Another sub-contractor who made riding breeches was a 
 woman, who wrought in her own home, with the assistance of 
 her daughter, and who, during the busy season, employed three 
 girls, all under twenty years of age. The girls received for the 
 first three months, one dollar and fifty cents each a week, and 
 two dollars a week afterwards. They worked six days of the 
 week, and if they quit an hour earlier on Saturdays, were obliged 
 to put in extra time on other days. The mother and daughter 
 worked frequently till eleven o'clock at night. No men were 
 employed. 
 
 Another female sub-contractor, while working for a time on 
 riding breeches, for the making of which she was paid fifty cents 
 a pair, employed about eighteen women and girls. They wrought 
 from seven o'clock in the morning till six in the evening for six 
 days in the week, with an hour off in the middle of the day, and 
 were paid from two to four dollars each a week. lollars 
 
 a week she considered a good wage. No men wen empi< yed. 
 
 The artillery and infantry great coats were ma • up largely 
 by women in their homes. Many of the workers lrv :d in villages 
 at a considerable distance from Montreal. In some S the 
 
 work was taken in by farmers' wives who had 3 t* e to do at 
 certain seasons ; in other cases the women appear to ha< e con- 
 tinued to work all the year round. In son k ; f -nc s < ly the 
 members of the family assisted in making up the { 
 not unfrequently women or girls were employed at a wi 
 or two dollars a week. It was not unusual fo; them to give 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 15 
 
 their services for a period of time gratis in order that they might 
 learn the trade. In one village which I visited, over fifteen miles 
 distant from Montreal, I learned that nearly every woman in the 
 place was making up clothing for the city firms. I went to the 
 homes of some who had worked on military clothes, and found 
 that they had made up infantry and artillery great coats at forty 
 cents each. For some of the coats the rate was higher, and for 
 others lower. One of the women told me that for military great 
 coats without capes, she had been paid only thirty cents each. 
 For the great coats with capes, and lined throughout with white 
 flannel, she had received forty cents each. With the assistance 
 of her son, and by both of them working steadily from half-past 
 seven in the morning till midnight, or even later, for six days of 
 the week, they were able to complete twenty great coats. That is 
 to say, four dollars a week represented the gross earnings of this 
 woman who wrought daily over fifteen hours out of twenty-four. 
 What her net earnings were may be estimated by deducting her 
 expenses for rent, fuel, light, &c. I mention this case in parti- 
 cular, because I have reason to believe it to be typical of many 
 such cases in the villages in the neighbourhood of Montreal. 
 
 Another woman who made military great coats at forty cents 
 each, had employed four girls to assist her. She usually paid 
 them twenty-five cents a day if they were first-class sewers. In 
 other words, under this system of sub-contracting, heavy Govern- 
 ment clothing was actually made up at two and a half cents an 
 hour. The woman herself was in the habit of working till mid- 
 night and, during the summer months, commenced her tasks as 
 early as five o'clock in the morning. It was only, she said, when 
 she had hired help that her gross eatings, even when thus work- 
 ing overtime, exceeded one dollar a day. 
 
 Another female sub-contractor, who had also received forty 
 cents each for military great coats with capes, had employed five 
 girls, some of whom were paid two dollars and others one dollar 
 each a week, which means that the one dollar a week workers 
 wrought at the rate of one and two-thirds cents an hour. There 
 
16 REPORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 were also a number of cases in which girls had given their ser- 
 vices gratis. In one of the houses visited, which was in a filthy 
 condition, I met a woman, the mistress of the house, who had 
 made up serge tunics for another Montreal firm at sixty cents 
 each. At the time I saw her she was making civilian coats for 
 the same firm at thirty cents each, and had as her assistants two 
 young women, neither of whom was paid anything, for the rea- 
 son, it was said, that each was learning the trade. 
 
 With respect to the military trousers, I learned that practically 
 all of them were let out by the firm which had the contract to men 
 and women in their homes. It was a common practice, it seems, 
 for the contracting firm to cut the cloth by machine on their own 
 premises, and then send it in bundles to individuals to be made 
 up in their homes in the city, and in different parts of the country. 
 As soon as the articles were finished they were called for, and 
 twenty cents a pair paid for the work done, which included the 
 sewing, fitting in of the stripes, pressing, &c. In some cases 
 thirty-five cents a pair had been received for these services. 
 
 (B.) — THE CONTRACTS IN TORONTO. 
 
 Only one firm in Toronto was awarded a contract for military 
 clothing. A small portion of the clothing was made on the 
 premises of the contracting firm; another portion was also made 
 on the firm's premises, but in a shop let to a sub-contractor, while 
 the balance was made by a second sub-contractor. The former 
 sub-contractor agreed with the Government contractor to make 
 up the cavalry riding breeches at sixty-five cents a pair. He em- 
 ployed three men at eleven, ten at eight dollars a week respec- 
 tively, and about sixteen women and girls at from two dollars 
 and fifty cents to four dollars a week. Of the women and girls, 
 about one-third were paid less than three dollars a week, the 
 majority about three dollars, and two or three other hands as 
 high as four dollars a week. Their ages varied from fifteen to 
 twenty-three years, or thereabouts. The second sub-contractor 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 17 
 
 made great coats for the artillery, with detachable capes, at one 
 dollar each, and infantry great coats at ninety cents each. 
 He also made up serge tunics for the mounted police, 
 with lining, at eighty cents each ; without lining, at fifty-five cents 
 each. He had in his employ seven men and thirty 
 women and girls. The average wage paid the men was about ten 
 dollars each a week, and that paid the women and girls from three 
 to five dollars each a week. The women did not begin work till 
 half-past seven in the morning, and all hands worked only half 
 a day on Saturdays. 
 
 (C.) — THE CONTRACTS IN HAMILTON. 
 
 In Hamilton, large Government contracts were let to one 
 firm. In no case were the clothes manufactured on the premises 
 of the Government contractors ; all the work, so far as I was able 
 to discover, was given out to two sub-contractors and to women 
 who worked in their homes. One sub-contractor made the dark 
 cloth tunics for the rifles and artillery, and also for the Hussars. 
 He was paid for the making of the artillery tunics eighty-five cents 
 each, for the rifle tunics eighty cents, for the serge tunics sixty 
 cents, and for the Hussar tunics one dollar and seventy-five cents, 
 each. I understood that latterly the prices were cut 10 per cent 
 below these amounts. This sub-contractor employed between 
 twenty-five and thirty hands. Three of these were men and the 
 rest women and girls. The best paid male employee received 
 from eleven to twelve dollars each a week, and the other male 
 hands six to seven dollars each a week. The weekly wages of 
 the women varied from two to six dollars. Three of the best 
 paid female operators received six dollars each a week, four or five 
 from four dollars and fifty cents to five dollars, three or four four 
 dollars, and the rest from two to four dollars each a week. 
 
 The other sub-contractor made the red military tunics, the 
 riding breeches and the overcoats and tunics of the post office 
 letter carriers. For the military tunics he received eighty cents 
 each ; for the cavalry riding breeches, sixty-five cents a pair : and 
 
18 REPORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 for the artillery riding breeches, seventy-five cents a pair. For 
 the overcoats for the letter carriers, all of which were lined, he 
 was paid one dollar and ten cents each, and for the letter carriers 
 tunics, ninety cents each. This sub-contractor employed two 
 men pressers and a boy, besides a large number of women and 
 girls. One of the pressers received fifteen dollars a week, the 
 other considerably less. The wages of the women and girls were 
 much the same as those paid by the other sub-contractor. The 
 employees in these shops worked only half a day on Saturdays. 
 The sub-contractors, both in Toronto and Hamilton, had to sup- 
 ply the linen and cotton (but not the silk) thread required for the 
 making up of the goods. The button-holes were made by 
 machine on the premises of the Government contractors. The 
 cavalry, artillery and infantry trousers were given out by the 
 Government contractors to vomen to make them up in their 
 homes. The cavalry trousers were made up at fifty and sixty 
 cents a pair, the artillery trousers at fifty cents a pair, and the 
 infantry trousers at 33 cents a pair. The trousers for the post 
 office letter carriers were made up in the same way at forty-three 
 cents a pair. 
 
 The button-holes, in all cases, were put in by machine on the 
 premises of the Government contractors, where also the cloth 
 was cut. The buttons of some of the trousers were put on by 
 machine. I learned, on reliable authority, that the cost of making 
 button-holes and the putting on of the buttons, when done by 
 machine, was at most a mere trifle. The button-holes in trousers 
 can be made at the rate of about ten cents a hundred. In the case 
 of overcoats, in which the button-holes are somewhat larger, the 
 cost is greater; but in no estimate which I was able to obtain in 
 any of the three cities, did I find that the cost exceeded seventy- 
 five cents a hundred, and this estimate, I have reason to believe, 
 is excessive. The putting on of the trouser buttons by machine, 
 I found to be even less. The machine is worked by a boy, and 
 it is very doubtful whether the cost of putting on all the buttons 
 required for a pair of trousers would exceed half a cent. 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 19 
 
 Wherever the women worked on trousers in their homes 
 they were required to send for and deliver their bundles. 
 In a good many cases a carter was employed who, for ten cents, 
 delivered a bundle which usually contained the cut cloth for four 
 pair of trousers. Twenty-four pairs were, as a rule, delivered for 
 fifteen cents, and thirty-two pairs for twenty-five cents. This 
 item of expense had to be borne by the women themselves. They 
 were obliged to supply their own cotton and linen (but not silk) 
 thread, which was purchased in every case that I met with, from 
 the Government contractor. The estimates given by the women 
 of the quantity of thread actually used in the making of a pair 
 of trousers varied so materially that it would scarce be fair to 
 mention any. The cost, however, it may be said, was a . sub- 
 stantial fraction of the gross earnings received. The women oc- 
 casionally employed one or more women or girls to work with them 
 in their homes, the prices paid for the services thus rendered being 
 usually very low. This practice, however, did not prevail to anything 
 lik^ the same extent as in Montreal ; but the same long hours, 
 from early morning till late at night, were common to many of 
 the homes visited, both in Hamilton and Montreal. It was pretty 
 generally conceded that, except by thus working overtime, or by 
 the profits made by the aid of hired help, there was very little 
 to be earned by a week's work. 
 
REPORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 III.— SALIENT FEATURES OF THE CASE. 
 
 Having presented the facts disclosed in the three industrial 
 centres in which my investigations extended, it may be of interest 
 to notice the prominent features of the situation in so far as they 
 arc shown by the hours of labour, and the wages and prices paid 
 the different classes of employees. It is in these two features, 
 separate or combined, that the sweating system, if prevalent at 
 all, is most likely to be exhibited. The real test of the system, 
 apart from other elements in it which aggravate the evil, is to be 
 found in the actual remuneration of the persons engaged in the 
 particular work, and in the time spent upon it. 
 
 Keeping in mind the three modes of sub-contracting under 
 which the Government contracts were actually carried out, it will 
 be observed that the third mode, namely, that of letting out 
 work to individuals to be preformed in their homes without the 
 aid of hired help, was common both to Montreal and Hamilton. 
 In the former city it was adopted with respect to some of the 
 great coats and tunics, and in both cities with respect to the 
 military trousers. There was this difference, however, that in 
 Montreal the prices paid by the Government contractors to these 
 home-workers seem to have been invariably lower than the prices 
 paid in Hamilton. But, in both cities, many of the women ap- 
 pear to have been obliged to work long hours in order to procure 
 a bare subsistence. In Montreal there is no doubt, judging by 
 the prices paid to many of the women in their homes, that it 
 would have been impossible for them to live on the earnings of 
 sixty hours of work in a week, and that it was only by their receiv- 
 ing assistance in the work assigned to them or through the means 
 furnished by other members of their families, that they were able 
 to live at all. Of course, it is not generally supposed by those 
 who employ this class of people, that the latter are dependent 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CON TR ACTS 21 
 
 upon their work alone for a livelihood. Many of them, it is said, 
 took the work only for the purpose of supplementing the com- 
 mon income, derived in a variety of ways by the family. While 
 this is true in many cases, the fact remains that the price which 
 has been paid to many of those employed in their homes, on 
 Government clothing, was in itself clearly insufficient to con- 
 stitute a living wage. Nor does it alter the fact already stated, 
 that many of the women were often compelled to toil fifteen 
 hours a day, or even longer, on Government work in order to 
 gain a living. 
 
 With respect to the second mode of sub-contracting, namely, 
 that in which part of the home was converted in a workshop — - 
 which appears to have been the conditions under which most of 
 the riding breeches were made in Montreal, and some of the 
 military trousers both in Montreal and Hamilton, the amounts 
 earned by these persons, usually girls and young women, who 
 were employed by the sub-contractors, were, in almost every case, 
 exceedingly low. In Montreal, as we have seen, a wage of from 
 one to two dollars a week was not uncommon to women and 
 girls who worked in a shop forming part of a sub-contractor's 
 home, while some even contributed part of their services for no 
 return in money. The fact also appears that when young women 
 were employed on peace work, it was only by working for 
 many hours overtime that they were able to earn five dollars 
 in any one week. As with but few exceptions all the hands em- 
 ployed in these home-shops were women or girls, it would seem 
 not unfair to conclude that very few, and in some shops none, 
 received a sufficient wage to enable them to subsist, had they 
 been wholly dependent on this species of work for a living. 
 
 As to the first mode of sub-contracting, namely, that in which 
 the sub-contractor had his shop elsewhere than in his home — 
 which was the method adopted in all three cities in the manu- 
 facture of great coats and tunics and, in Montreal and Toronto, 
 of riding breeches also — the wages paid those actually engaged 
 in the work seem to have varied slightly, being lowest in Mont- 
 
22 REPORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 real, a little higher, as a rule, in Toronto, and still higher in 
 Hamilton. Nevertheless, the highest wage paid to the most skilful 
 female workers in Hamilton appears rarely to have exceeded six 
 dollars a week, while four dollars a week seems to have been 
 regarded as a good wage for women. In Toronto the weekly 
 return might fairly be put down at from three dollars to three 
 dollars and fifty cents, and in Montreal at three dollars. The 
 wages earned by the men were in much the same porportion. 
 Where the work was thus carried on in separate .shops the hours 
 of labour were confined, more or less strictly, to those prescribed 
 by the provincial Factory Acts. 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 23 
 
 IV.— PROFITS. 
 
 The profits received by contractors is a subject which natur- 
 ally associates itself with that of the wages received by those who 
 work for hire. In contract work generally, and particularly 
 where the system of sub-contracting prevails, the profits of the 
 contractors, so far as each is individually concerned, may be said 
 to depend almost entirely on the amount which they have to pay 
 to those in their employ. The other factors which help to de- 
 termine the situation, namely, the price to be received for the fin- 
 ished articles, the cost of the raw material, the fixed capital in- 
 vested in the manufacture, the risks, &c, are more or less con- 
 stant, but wages, the increase or diminution of which means a 
 larger or smaller outlay on the part of the contractor, are a vital 
 element in determining the profits which the latter shall receive. 
 In this we find the obvious explanation of the low rate of wage 
 generally prevalent wherever the sub-contracting system exists, 
 and a no less obvious explanation of the all but universal employ- 
 ment of female, to the exclusion of male, labour. The time has 
 not yet arrived, at least in the clothing trade, when a like service 
 commands a like remuneration irrespective of the sex of the per- 
 son who preforms it. The reward for female labour is still 
 greatly at a discount as compared with that of the opposite sex. 
 It must also be observed that the competition between the sub- 
 contractors, which must exist where the sub-contracting is 
 resorted to, tends, in the first instance, to limit the margin of 
 profits they may, in any event, be able to obtain. To the extent 
 to which this margin is limited, wages are likely to suffer a greater 
 or dess depression. 
 
 In the case of these Government contracts, if the contractor 
 who receives a stipulated price for the finished article is able to 
 sub-let the great part of the work of maunfacture at a fixed sum, 
 his profits become calculable almost to a certainty. He is re- 
 
24 RE FORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 lieved of further responsibility in respect of superintendence, 
 while the wages paid to those employed by the sub-contractor he 
 is pleased to regard as beyond his control, and as a matter with 
 which he has no concern whatever. Thus it happens that the 
 persons who actually perform the work are left at the mercy 
 of the sub-contractor, who, it must be remembered, has 
 also his profits to make *nd who, having regard to the 
 amount of his gains, seeks to depress wages to the lowest pos- 
 sible point, the wages being the one variable factor upon which 
 his profits depend. The price of the manufactured article is 
 already stipulated, in the case of the sub-contractor, in the same 
 manner as it was in that of the Government contractor, and 
 the difference between this price and his necessary outlay, of 
 which wages constitute by far the most important part, is his re- 
 ward. Wherever the sub-contracting system prevails, two dis- 
 tinct profits have first to be realized above what goes to those 
 who do most of the work of manufacture, namely, (i) the sub- 
 contractor must make a profit out of the work of his employees, 
 and (2) the Government contractor must make a profit out of the 
 sub-contractor. When the work is let out directly to women in 
 their homes, it is certain that the price paid to them is less than 
 what would have been paid to a sub-contractor who employs his 
 own hands, otherwise the latter method would be adopted. In 
 these cases the Government contractor secures the two profits 
 for himself. 
 
 It would be impossible, without a more extensive and minute 
 inquiry than I was able to make, to state accurately to what 
 extent the competition between sub-contractors and the profits 
 received by them were the cause of the low prices and wages 
 paid. That they were important causes must appear quite 
 evident. One basis of calculation as to the latter that was given 
 by a sub-contractor who employed a number of persons, and who 
 had been in the business for several years, was this : He cal- 
 culated that his net profits should never fall below what he paid 
 out in wages to his hands. All other expenses of the shop hav- 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 25 
 
 ing been met, there should remain to himself a balance equivalent 
 at least to that which he had expended on wages. This was the 
 minimum amount, and his main object, of course, was to keep 
 above it. Having been a sub-contractor for fifteen years, he 
 could not remember a single season when he had cleared less 
 than forty dollars a week, and a sum varying from sixty to eighty 
 dollars might be taken as a fair weekly average of his gains. He 
 had often, he said, cleared over one hundred dollars a week. His 
 employees were nearly all women because they were cheaper 
 than men and, in some cases, were able to preform better work. 
 
 The profits that were realized by the Government contractors 
 may be obtained, with some degree of certainty, by referring to 
 the prices paid by the Government for the articles in question, 
 and by comparing these with the prices paid by the Government 
 contractors to those with whom they sub-contracted for the work 
 of manufacture. This, however, opens a field of investigation 
 almost as extensive as that pertaining to wages, and it was with 
 the latter alone that I was primarily concerned. 
 
REPORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 V.— SANITARY CONDITIONS AND INSPECTION. 
 
 Of scarcely less importance to the wage-earners than the 
 pecuniary return for their labour are the environments in which 
 it has to be performed. The effects produced on the people 
 by the occupations in which they are engaged are of almost equal 
 moment to the wage-earners and the state alike. In the case of 
 a commodity such as clothing, or any other article consumed in 
 large quantities, the consequence to the public of the commodity 
 being manufactured under conditions helpful or hurtful to the 
 public itself can hardly be over-estimated. The recent investi- 
 gation, as well as inquiries instituted in other crowded centres of 
 population, have led me to believe that the truth of these all but 
 self-evident propositions cannot be too fully realized or studied 
 too carefully in detail. I have been painfully impressed with the 
 fact that the injustice which has been suffered by individuals, and 
 the risks which the public itself ran during past years on account 
 of the methods which have been permitted to exist in the 
 manufacture of Government clothing are two of the most alarm- 
 ing and distressing features of the whole contract system. 
 
 Where a contract was sub-let to a contractor who had his shop 
 in a building separate and distinct from his home, there was at 
 least the possibility of inspection by the factory or workshop in- 
 spector ; there was also the probability that the hours of labour 
 prescribed by law, and other regulations as to sanitation and the 
 like would be observed ; but beyond this the individual worker 
 received little or no protection. As a matter of fact, some of the 
 shops, which I visited were in anything but a proper sanitary 
 condition and that they were any better in past years is highly 
 improbable. The atmosphere in which the occupants lived and 
 worked was frequently foul and noisome, and statements were 
 repeatedly made by the employees to the effect that their health 
 had suffered in consequence. A large number of hands were, as 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 27 
 
 a rule, gathered together in small ill-ventilated apartments, and 
 this during cold seasons, when the windows were kept closed 
 and gas irons were used the whole day long, could hardly fail to 
 be detrimental to those who were obliged to submit to this sort 
 of confinement. The factory inspectors whom I consulted freely 
 admitted that it was next to impossible for them to secure a 
 proper compliance with the law and that, to their certain knowl- 
 edge, there were shops which were not complying with it. One 
 of these officials informed me that he had visited a certain shop 
 and was glad to escape from it, so vitiated was the asmosphere ; 
 and when asked whether he had effected any change in its condi- 
 tions, he replied that he was all but powerless to do so. It must 
 not be supposed that all inspection was carried on in this way. 
 I do not believe it was ; at the same time, I have every reason 
 for stating confidently that the workshops of sub-contractors, 
 being as numerous as they are, received a scant degree of ins- 
 pection, that some of them escaped inspection altogether, and 
 that others, although to all appearances complying with the law, 
 were, in fact, disregarding it with perfect impunity. There were 
 cases, of course, in which there was a rough conformity with the 
 statutes of the land ; and wherever this rude respect for the law 
 was preserved, the situation, although far from satisfactory, was 
 infinitely better than where there was none, and the law was a 
 dead letter. This leads to a consideration of the conditions in 
 workshops conducted in homes. While all such are really within 
 the scope of the Factory and Workshops Acts of the provinces, 
 they are, as a matter of fact, but seldom reached effectually by 
 the provisions of these statutes. The inspectors complain that 
 it is often quite impossible for them to discover where such shops 
 exist, and in a centre like Montreal, from which many of the shops 
 in homes radiate for miles beyond the city limits, it is question- 
 able if a knowledge of their existence and situation would aid 
 materially in the work of inspection. The result is, that besides 
 the injury to the home, to those immediately connected with it, 
 which may be occasioned by the introduction of strangers and 
 the presence of a workshop in its midst, a great injustice to the 
 
28 REPORT OF W. L. MACKENZIE KING 
 
 wage-earners and a complete evasion of the law are inevitable. 
 That such has been the case in home-shops, in which Govern- 
 ment clothing has been manufactured, has already been pointed 
 out. The working for long periods of time, both before and 
 after the legal hours of labour, the disregard of the requirements 
 as to age, and the lack of compliance with regulations as to health, 
 may all be classed among the abuses in question. Other baneful 
 influences arising either from the want of inspection, or from 
 defects in its methods, will be noticed hereafter. 
 
 Where clothing has been let out to individuals to be made up 
 in their homes, with the assistance only of the members of the 
 household, there was absolutely no restriction as to the condi- 
 tions under which the work of manufacture had to be carried on. 
 This led ; as we have seen, to a state of things which, in some 
 cases, women were compelled to toil from early morn until the 
 hours of midnight in order to procure a bare maintenance. To 
 what degree children were thereby neglected, and the duties of 
 the home sacrificed to the imperative demands of the needle or 
 the machine, are questions, the answers to which might prove to 
 be of great and far-reaching importance. The home is still the 
 nursery of the nation 
 
 Finally, as has already been indicated, it is not the individual 
 works alone who suffer from the lack of a proper system of 
 supervision and inspection. The persons who use the manufac- 
 tured goods, the particular consumers, so to speak, and the public 
 at large, run a constant and serious risk of incurring sickness or 
 contracting diseases through contagion communicated by the 
 garments in question. This danger has never probably been 
 fully realized, if indeed it has been seriously considered, by the 
 great body of consumers. There is really nothing to prevent 
 the worst possible consequences following the neglect of inspec- 
 tion of a commodity so precariously manufactured as that of 
 clothing. In the making up of Government garments it appears 
 that only that part of the clothing which was manufactured in 
 shops other than those conducted in homes was, in any sense of 
 
ON GOVERNMENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 29 
 
 the term, subject to inspection. In all other cases where work was 
 given out to people to be made up in their homes, there was 
 absolutely no guarantee against the .spread of infection other than 
 the willingness of the home workers to disclose it. That such 
 cannot be relied on is evident from a well-authenticated instance 
 which came directly to my knowledge. A sub-contractor who 
 was making civilian coats for a large wholesale firm in a shop 
 conducted in his home, told me that he had continued making 
 these coats while his children were lying ill in the house with 
 diphtheria, and that he had purposely concealed the fact of their 
 illness from the authorities, because it was at a time when he 
 most needed his money. This is but a single instance of the 
 manner in which individual workers as well as the public at large 
 — because in this case the working hands lived outside and came 
 daily to the shop — are exposed to continuous risk, in the absence 
 of a proper .system of inspection. Further inquiry would doubt- 
 less have disclosed other instances of the same sort. Of the 
 homes which I visited, some were scrupulously clean, others were 
 in a very filthy condition. Frequently the rooms in which the 
 clothes were being made up was that utilized as kitchen and 
 dressing-room combined. In some cases the cut cloth or finished 
 garments were stored in the sleeping apartments of the family, 
 although, of course, other rooms were occasionally used for the 
 same purpose. In these home-shops, the members of the family 
 appeared to frequent the working-room at will or were employed 
 in it all the time that the work was being carried on. 
 
 It must be apparent, therefore, that while, in its contracts for 
 the manufacture of clothing in past years, the Government has 
 protected the nation by providing for the equipment of those 
 enlisted in its service, it has also, owing to the neglect of inspec- 
 tion in most cases, and to the partial or ineffective inspection in 
 others, permitted the existence of abuses detrimental to those 
 employed in the manufacture, and has, at the same time exposed 
 individuals and the public alike to possible dangers of a much 
 graver character. , 
 
30 REPORT OF W. L MACKENZIE KING 
 
 VI.— A SUMMARY. 
 
 The conclusions of the investigation may be briefly summar- 
 ized as follows : — 
 
 1. Practically all of the clothing manufactured for the Gov- 
 ernment of Canada, under the contract system of the past ten 
 years, has been manufactured, for the most part, on premises other 
 than those of the Government contractors, and according to one 
 of the three modes of sub-contracting already described. As a 
 result of this the Government contractors have had no immediate 
 supervision of the contract work, and have, in fact, only assumed 
 a partial responsibility for the methods and condition under 
 which it was performed. In other words, the contractors, while 
 reaping the benefits of the contract in question, have failed to 
 discharge adequately the duties and responsibilities which may 
 not unfairly be regarded as appertaining to the proper carrying 
 out of their obligations. 
 
 2. Most of the work on Government clothing has really been 
 executed by women and girls. Where these have been employed 
 in shops their wages have been, on the whole, exceedingly low ; 
 and where the work was performed in homes the prices paid were 
 often such as to necessitate long hours of labour for a very 
 meagre return. In the case of those employed by sub-contractors 
 the general rule has been to require a maximum amount of work 
 for a minimum amount of pay. Exceptionally long hours and 
 other objectionable features have marked the course of employ- 
 ment of the workers in the homes and of not a few in the shops. 
 
 3. The introduction of a sub-contractor, who resorts to hired 
 help, has involved the necessity of realizing a double profit out 
 of the work of the hands and, as a consequence of this and the 
 competition of sub-contractors, the wages of the large majority 
 of those engaged on Government work have suffered a consider- 
 
OX GOVERN MENT CLOTHING CONTRACTS 31 
 
 able depression. The wages received will not bear comparison 
 other than unfavourable with those paid as a fair return for 
 labour in other trades or occupations. 
 
 4. The conditions under which much of the Government work 
 has been executed have been such as to prove injurious to the 
 health and well-being of those engaged in it. There has been no 
 proper or adequate inspection of the methods or the work itself, 
 and, as a consequence, individuals and the public alike have been 
 exposed to continuous risk from the spread of contagion as well 
 as to harm in other ways. 
 
 I need scarcely add that the existence of such conditions, apart 
 from any other attendant evils of the sweating system, constitute 
 emphatically, in the words of your communication, ' sufficient 
 grounds for Government interference in order that future con- 
 tracts may be performed in a manner free from all such object- 
 ionable features.' The step in this direction which has already 
 been taken by your Department cannot fail to bring about a 
 much-needed reform, and be productive of great and lasting good 
 to the industrial classes of this country. 
 
 I have the honour to be 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 W. L. MACKENZIE KING. 
 
 Toronto, January 5, 1898. 
 
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