INTRODUCTION.

As the United States Department of Commerce is now engaged in taking a manufacturers' census of New Hampshire as required every five years, this department has devoted this report to other work so that there would be no interference with the agents of the United States Department of Commerce while securing and compiling their report on New Hampshire. You will find contained in this report statistics relating to Industrial Disputes, Report of State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration, Occupational Diseases, Directory of Local Unions, Unemployment in New Hampshire, Accident Reports, and Directory of Manufacturing and Mechanical Establishments.

The legislature of 1913 enacted a law, Chapter 118, requiring all physicians to report occupational diseases to the State Board of Health, the same to be transmitted to the Commissioner of Labor, but, to the close of the fiscal year, only three cases have been reported and transmitted to the Labor Commissioner, regardless of the fact that there are many occupations in New Hampshire which, by their nature, are apt to cause occupational diseases.

In the past year this department has received many calls for a directory of Local Unions, and we have devoted a part of this report to such a directory.

The question of unemployment is one that is being seriously considered throughout the United States and we have devoted a part of the report to this question. As this department has not sufficient funds to put men and women into the field to make a complete census of this question throughout the State of New Hampshire, the matter contained herein on this subject was secured from the secretaries of local unions throughout the State. Many indus

tries have been on short time for some months throughout the year and some of the larger industries of the State that usually have a shut-down for repairs for a period of two weeks continued it this year through a period of three weeks, so when this question is considered from every point of view unemployment in the State of New Hampshire is a question that will some day have to be fully considered.

There was introduced into the legislature of 1915 a law to require all employers of the State to report all industrial accidents to this department. It is to be regretted that this proposed law failed in passage. We are of the opinion that with such a law it would be possible to secure reliable data upon which to base a compensation law that would be equitable to all parties concerned. The industrial accidents contained in this report were secured from employers who are now working under the compensation provisions of Chapter 163, Laws of 1911, An Act in Relation to Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation, they being required under Section 12 of this law to furnish these reports to this department. There are also a few employers who make returns of all accidents, although they have not as yet filed their declaration to work under the compensation provisions of the act.

We have also devoted a part of this report to a directory of manufacturing and mechanical establishments for which there is a continual call from many sources.

The only labor legislation enacted by the legislature of 1915 were changes in the fifty-five hour law of the State. The important change in Section 1 was "no minor under eighteen years of age" (which means no minor boy under the age of eighteen). The provision for the employment of females for two nights after 8 p. m., and the overtime provision in event of the breakdown of machinery in a manufacturing establishment. The hours of labor, not over ten and one-quarter in any one day or fifty-five hours in any one week, remain unchanged.

The Commissioner has devoted considerable time to the inspection of workshops and factories relative to the sanitary and hygienic conditions; and it is to be regretted, although there was a very comprehensive factory inspection law introduced in the 1915 legislature it failed in passage. Had this law gone into effect it would have placed New Hampshire in line with many other of her sister states. We are still of the opinion that such a law should be enacted so that it would be possible to bring about by education and cooperation the safe guarding of machinery and dangerous places in which workers are obliged to work, thereby reducing to a minimum the industrial accidents.

Most respectfully,

J. S. B. DAVIE,

Labor Commissioner.