EIGHT-HOUR LAW-CONSTRUCTION OF NAVAL VESSELS. The provision in the naval appropriation act of March 4, 1911 (36 Stat. 1287), requiring the person, firm, or corporation constructing any of the vessels therein specified to establish an eight-hour workday for all its employees, does not authorize the establishment of a schedule by which the employees work more than eight hours in any one day. A schedule by which employees work 8 or 8 hours on five days in the week and 4 or 5 hours on Saturday, making a total of 48 hours in each week, is prohibited by the eight-hour workday restriction in said act of 1911. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 15th instant, inclosing letters from the Fore River Shipbuilding Co. and the New York Shipbuilding Co., contractors with your department for the construction of certain battleships. From the correspondence it appears that these companies have been heretofore in the habit of working their employees 10 to 10 hours per day on five days in the week and 5 hours on Saturday, thus permitting a half holiday on Saturday. They now desire, adhering to this same general plan, to work 8 or 83 hours on five days in the week and 4 or 5 hours on Saturday, making a total of 48 hours in each week, and allowing their employees the half holiday on Saturday as before. They state that their employees would be greatly dissatisfied, if, by reason of working only 8 hours in each calendar day, they lost their half holiday on Saturday. In view of these circumstances, you wish to be informed whether the establishment of such a working basis would meet the requirements of the act of March 4, 1911 (36 Stat. 1265, 1287), which prohibits payment for these battleships to any person or corporation which has not established for all its employees engaged in their construction" an eight-hour workday." The general, broad policy of statutes restricting the hours of labor of employees, as pointed out in my opinion. to you of December 21 (29 Op. 279), last, and in Averill's Case (14 Ct. Cls. 200, 207), is "that eight hours' labor is enough to be performed in any one day, and that the condi tion of laboring people would be greatly improved and elevated if their physical work were restricted to that extent, and they were afforded more time to devote to mental culture and improvement." The accomplishment of this large purpose should not be made to turn upon a doubtful construction of slightly varying phraseology, or upon the argument that these same ends can be as well, if not better, attained by other methods. Congress has passed several acts relating to this subject, and, though the terms used vary somewhat, the purpose of their enactment must, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, be taken to be the same. The act of June 25, 1868 (15 Stat. 77), R. S. 3738, provided that "eight hours shall constitute a day's work." The act of May 24, 1888 (25 Stat. 157), relating to letter carriers, used the same language and added "if any letter carrier is employed a greater number of hours per day than eight he shall be paid extra for the same." The act of March 30, 1888 (25 Stat. 57), provided "and the Public Printer is hereby directed to rigidly enforce the provisions of the eight-hour law." The act of August 1, 1892 (27 Stat. 340), which was clearly passed merely to extend the act of 1868 to contractors and subcontractors and to provide a penalty for violations of its restrictions (House Report No. 267, 52d Cong., 1st sess., Senate Report No. 948, ibid, 20 Op. 459, 462), and not to change its general meaning, provided "that the service and employment of all laborers and mechanics is hereby limited and restricted to eight hours in any one calendar day." The act of June 2, 1900 (31 Stat. 252, 257), provided "That letter carriers may be required to work as nearly as practicable only eight hours on each working day, but not in any event exceeding fortyeight hours during the six working days of each week; and such number of hours on Sunday, not exceeding eight, as may be required by the needs of the service; and if a legal holiday shall occur on any working day, the service performed on said day, if less than eight hours, shall be counted as eight hours without regard to the time actually employed." The act of June 17, 1902 (32 Stat. 389), relating to reclamation of arid lands, contained the proviso "that in all construction work eight hours shall constitute a day's work." The naval appropriation act of June 24, * * * 1910 (36 Stat. 605, 628), required the contracts for construction of vessels to contain a provision bringing them within the act of August 1, 1892, supra. The act which passed the House December 14 last and is now pending in the Senate is to the same effect, though of broader scope. As indicated above, I do not think that the slightly varying phraseology of these acts indicates any different intention on the part of Congress as to the main purpose of the legislation, i. e., to limit the hours of labor to eight hours in one day. It can not be denied that the act of August 1, 1892, with its restriction to eight hours in any one calendar day would prohibit the schedule of hours desired by your correspondents, and, as pointed out above, Congress did not suppose that this language had any different meaning from the provision "that eight hours shall constitute a day's work" of the act of June 25, 1868. The naval appropriation act of June 24, 1910, expressly adopts the act of August 1, 1892, and I can not believe that the phrase "eight-hour workday" in the act of March 4, 1911, is so clearly different in meaning as to indicate that Congress intended to make this act, upon this important point, an exception to all other legislation on the same subject, especially since, as pointed out in my opinion of December 21 last (29 Op. 279, 284), the Members of Congress responsible for the amendment to the naval appropriation act and the conference report on the bill stated that it was intended thereby to apply the restrictions of the act of August 1, 1892, to the construction of vessels authorized in the appropriation act. The act of May 24, 1888, supra, containing the provision "that hereafter eight hours shall constitute a day's work for letter carriers," came under the consideration of the Court of Claims in the Letter Carriers' Cases (27 Ct. Cls. 244). One of the contentions of the Government in those cases was that, where a carrier worked less than eight hours in a day he was to be charged with the deficiency, and that his extra pay was to be figured on an eight-hour average through a period of a week, month, or year. In disposing of this claim the court said (27 Ct. Cls. 259): "To sustain the interpretation given to the act by the Department, it will be necessary to read in it by construction the words on an average'-i. e., if any letter carrier is employed on an average a greater number of hours per day than eight, he shall be paid extra for the same. This the court is not at liberty to do." This language of the Court of Claims is adopted as its opinion by the Supreme Court on appeal (United States v. Gates, 148 U. S. 134). The same principle seems to be involved in the decisions in Luske v. Hotchkiss (37 Conn. 219), Brooks v. Cotton (48 N. H. 50), Helphenstine v. Hartig (5 Ind. App. 172), and in Mr. Moody's opinion in 26 Op. 64, 67. The act of June 2, 1900, supra, passed to regulate the situation disclosed by the Letter Carrier Cases, shows that when Congress intends to permit an average eight-hour day to be computed by the week, or some longer period, it is capable of using language clearly expressing that idea. To construe the phrase "an eight-hour workday" so as to make it, not a standard in and of itself, but merely a factor in some larger period of time, would be to enter on an unknown course without guide or compass. Why should a week be taken as the ultimate sum? Why not a month or a year? A schedule could then be arranged of, say, 192 hours a month, consisting of, say, 12 hours a day with holidays interspersed. Or the men might be worked 12 hours a day, when emergency required, and laid off when work was slack. Congress has chosen in this legislation to take the eight-hour day as the standard, and has provided no other. For me, now, to adopt another would not be construction; it would be legislation. That the schedule desired by your correspondents will be acceptable to their employees and, perchance, more favorable to their physical and moral well-being than a strict eight-hour schedule is a consideration proper to the legislative department, and to it only. As a matter of the construction of the act of March 4, 1911, to which, of course, I am confined, I am of the opinion that the phrase "an eight-hour workday" does not authorize the establishment of a schedule by which the employees work more than eight hours in any one day. Respectfully, GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM. The SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. ARMS AND MUNITIONS OF WAR. The words "arms or munitions of war," within the meaning of the joint resolution of March 14, 1912, authorizing the President by proclamation to prohibit the export of arms or munitions of war to any American country in which conditions of domestic violence are found to exist, embrace weapons used for the destruction of life, together with ammunition and equipment useful in connection with them, and explosives and other equipment of a military character, or articles used for the construction of such equipment. Such articles as come within the definition of "arms or munitions of war" are herein enumerated. Foodstuffs, ordinary clothing, and ordinary articles of peaceful commerce are not included in the prohibition. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, March 25, 1912. SIR: You have referred to me some correspondence with the Acting Secretary of State regarding the practical interpretation to be given to the prohibition contained in the joint resolution of Congress passed March 14, 1912, and the proclamation issued by you, in pursuance thereof, making it unlawful to export, except under such limitations and exceptions as the President shall prescribe, any arms or munitions of war from any place in the United States to any American country in which conditions of domestic violence are found by the President to exist, etc. You ask my opinion as to the proper interpretation to be given to the words " arms or munitions of war." There is no dispute as to the meaning of the word "arms," but a question arises as to the precise import of the phrase "munitions of war." The word "munition " is defined in Skeat's Etymological Dictionary as "materials used in war." It is derived from the verb munire, to fortify; and perhaps its nearest antecedent is munitionem-the accusative of munitio, a blockading, defending, or securing― hence its analogy to ammunition, store for defense. Accordingly the Standard Dictionary defines it as "Ammunition and all necessary raw material, including stores of every kind; all requisites for warfare, exclusive of money and men." The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia defines it as "Materials used in war for defense or for attack; war material; military stores of all kinds; ammuni |