VII
   
In conclusion let us make a general survey of the ministerial regulations. Let us recall what regulations the new law provides the ministers with. Three categories of regulations: 1) regulations to interpret the law; 2) regulations to increase or reduce the demands made by the new law on employers; 3) regulations concerning trades especially harmful to the
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workers' health. What use have the ministers made of the powers granted them by this law?
   
As to the first category, they have confined themselves to the most essential, to the very minimum below which they could not go. They have permitted overtime on a very wide and elastic scale -- 120 hours per year and, moreover, by means of the instructions have introduced such a host of exceptions that they rob the regulations of all meaning. They have done their best to cut down the workers' meal times, they have left the scandalous shift system as it was, if they have not actually made it worse.
   
As to the second category of regulations, the ministers have done all they could to reduce the demands of the new law on the employers, i.e., they have done all they could for the employers and absolutely nothing tor the workers : in no single case do the regulations increase the demands of the new law upon the employers for the workers' benefit.
   
As to the third category of regulations (i.e., those for the benefit of the workers who are compelled to work at the most harmful occupations), the ministers have done absolutely nothing, they have said not a single word about them. All that the instructions say is that the factory inspectors may report to the Department about especially injurious trades! As far as "reporting" goes the factory inspectors could formerly also report anything they liked, only till now, for some inexplicable reason, these factory policemen "reported" about workers' strikes and about methods of terrorising the workers, and not about protecting the workers in the especially injurious trades.
   
From this the workers can see for themselves what they may expect from the officials of the police government. To secure an eight-hour day and the complete banning of overtime the Russian workers still have a long and stubborn struggle to wage.