H.—ll

8

It should be noted that in any event the Act applies, both as to the maximum or standard rent and as to the right of possession, only to those houses (whose standard rental does not exceed £2 a week) that were first let before the 10th November, 1920. There is no restriction of any kind regarding houses first let after that date. Amending Legislation. The Housing Amendment Act, 1921-22, continued the Rent Restriction provisions of the War Legislation Amendment Act, 1916, until the 31st December, 1922, with the following additions and alterations :— (1.) The provision enabling the Court in an application for ejectment to take into account the relative hardship of the tenant and the landlord has been repealed, and an owner or purchaser is now entitled to possession if for his own occupation. (2.) It has also been provided that a landlord who obtains an order for possession on the ground that he requires the property for his own use shall not let the dwellinghouse or permit any person other than a member of his family to occupy it or sell or enter into an agreement to sell the dwellinghouse for a period of six months after he obtains possession, without the permission of a Magistrate. (3.) A penalty of £100 is provided for the offence of stipulating, demanding, or accepting as a condition of the tenancy of a dwellinghouse payment for furniture, &c, in excess of its value. Lead Poisoning in the Painting Industry during the Past Few Years. This subject has been carefully investigated by the officers of both the Labour and Health Departments, but owing to the lack of definite evidence so far as to the cause and prevalence of the disease it has been considered advisable to make chronic lead poisoning a notifiable disease under the Health Act. The result has borne out the opinion of the Departments that this disease is not common in New Zealand, owing mainly to the fact that paint is not largely used on the interior of buildings. It is recognized, however, that the use of white-lead may increase to such an extent as to warrant some precautionary measures being taken for the protection of the workers engaged in the painting industry, and a considerable amount of valuable information lias therefore been collected from other countries. Official tests are now being carried out to ascertain whether efficient substitutes for white-lead in paint are available which will be equally durable and reasonable in cost. Legislation in other Countries. During 1921 the Third International Labour Conference sat in Geneva, the session lasting from the 25th October to the 18th November, 1921. This meeting of the Conference might be regarded as the second rather than the third session of the General Conference, since the session at Genoa was a special one called to deliberate on the regulation of labour at sea. The Geneva session was, like the first session (held at Washington in 1919), occupied with general questions, although agricultural matters bulked largely on the agenda. Commissions were set up to investigate and report on the following subjects— viz., conditions of workers in agriculture (prevention of unemployment, protection against sickness, invalidity, and old age, and questions affecting women and children in agricultural employments) ; maritime questions (concerning the employment of young people on board ship) ; anthrax and the necessity of instituting a system of disinfection under an International Anthrax Commission ; weekly rest, and the eight-hours day and forty-eight-hours week; white-lead and the prohibition of its use in painting. A great amount of controversy ranged around the questions of the weekly rest day (which is the complement of the eight-hours day and forty-eight-hours week) and the prohibition of the use of white-lead, and the conventions resolved upon by the Conference were more or less the result of compromises effected between the parties. The delegates of the nations of chief industrial importance showed reluctance to bind their countries to introduce a weekly rest day or to prohibit the use of white-lead in painting. Neither of these conventions affects the position in New Zealand, as this country already has, generally speaking, an eight-hours day, and cases of white-lead poisoning are exceedingly rare. Apprenticeship. The matter of preventing boys from engaging in " blind-alley" occupations continued to attract attention in a number of countries throughout the year, and schemes of varying kinds were suggested to enable employers to overcome the growing world shortage of skilled men. In the United States, Canada, France, and Australia (particularly in New South Wales), the question received much attention. In the first-named three countries the employers have evolved plans providing for higher rates of pay, vocational training, and fixing commencing-ages for apprentices, sometimes with the co-operation of the unions concerned, and in the last-named State apprenticeship is being investigated by the Board of Trade, which recently issued a comprehensive report of its determinations and directions for overcoming the difficulties encountered in the training of youths in trades. Remarks upon this matter were made, in the annual reports of this Department for the years 1919 (pages 2 and 3), 1920 (page 2), 1921 (pages 7 and 8). Workmen's Compensation. In practically all countries where there is a workmen's compensation law the amount payable was increased to correspond with the rise in the cost of living. These increases were made in New Zealand by the Workers' Compensation Amendment Act, 1920. Vocational rehabilitation