e to
the use of poisonous material in industry, and the regulation of
dangerous trades; workmen's insurance; the establishment of wages boards
and minimum rates as preventives against sweating; the extension of the
ten-hours' day and the Saturday half-holiday to be the legal rule in all
industrial countries; and the introduction of the three-shift system and
the eight-hour working day in continuous industries. As it is obvious
that questions so large, touching so deeply the domestic life and habits
of every people, cannot possibly be settled either out of hand or all
at once, the Association's study of each separate problem is always
prolonged and, according to the circumstances and the difficulty of the
case, more prolonged in one instance than in another. Like the old
pioneers of National Factory legislation, the Association has proceeded
along the line of least resistance: not because it lacks courage, but
for reasons of sheer prudence. If it was to become, in the words of M.
Millerand, the present French Minister of War, one of its oldest and
staunchest members, 'the laboratory in which international treaties are
made', it was clear that it must not propose for international
acceptance reforms which even among the most progressive peoples were
looked upon as doubtful or dangerous. Accordingly it chose for the
subject of its first great efforts two reforms in relation to which it
could count with certainty upon a considerable amount of sympathy, and
proposed international legislation prohibiting the night-work of women
in factories, and the manufacture, importation, and sale of matches made
with white phosphorus. Information on both these subjects was collected
by means of the national sections; the Association in conference drew up
proposals and recommendations to the governments concerned; the
governments consented to a diplomatic conference at Berne, and the
conventions concluded in 1906 were the happy result of their meeting.

But it must not be supposed that these results were reached without
difficulty. Even as regards so comparatively simple a reform as the
abolition of the night-work of women--to be carried out, after
considerable 'delays' in favour of those countries in which night-work
by women had hitherto been an accepted industrial custom--the adjustment
of the change to the varying circumstances of each State proved a
delicate business, and agreement could never have been reached but for
the willingness