Chap. 55.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 4 of an act approved
March 4. 1898, amending and re-enacting sections 3 and 4 of an act en-
titled an act to provide for a bureau of labor and industrial statistics, and
defining the duties of said bureau, approved March 3, 1898.

Approved February 27, 1906.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That sections three
and four of an act entitled an act to provide for a bureau of labor and in-
dustrial statistics, and for defining the duties of said bureau, approved
March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, be amended and re-
enacted so as to read as follows: ‘

§3. The governor shall appoint, by and with the consent of the senate,
some suitable person who is identified with the labor interests of the State,
who shall be designated commissioner of labor statistics, and who shall,
upon the request of the governor, furnish such information as he may
require. The term of office for said commissioner shall be two years
from date of his appointment, with power of removal by the governor for
cause.

$4. The commissioner shall have power to take and preserve testimony,
examine witnesses under oath and administer the same; and when he is
of the opinion from said testimony that the laws of the State relating to
labor have been violated or evaded, he shall make a thorough investigation
as to such violation or cvasion, and to that end may, under proper restric-
tions, enter any public institution of this State, and any factory, store,
workshop or mine, and interrogate any such person, firm or the proper
officer of a corporation, or file a written or printed list of interrogatories,
and require full and complete answers to be made thereto and returned
under oath within thirty days of receipt of said list of questions, and if
any person who may be sworn to give testimony shall wilfully fail or refuse
to answer any legal and proper question propounded to him concerning
the subject of such examination, as indicated in the second section of this
act, or 1f any person to whom a written or printed list of such interroga-
tions has been furnished by said commissioner shall neglect or refuse to
fully answer and return the same under oath, such person shall be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof before a court of
competent jurisdiction shall be fined a sum not exceeding one hundred
dollars nor less than twenty-five dollars, or by imprisonment in the county
jail not exceeding ninety days, or by both fine and imprisonment: pro-
vided, however, that nothing in this act shall be construed as permitting
the commissioner or any employce of this bureau to make use of any in-
formation or statistics gathered from any person, company or corporation
for any other than the purposes of this act.

If the commissioner shall find, upon such investigation, that the laws
of this State relating to Jabor have been violated or evaded, he shall notify
the person. firm or proper officer of the corporation of such violation or
evasion, in writing, and unless the laws are fully complied with, within a
reasonable time, not to exceed thirty days, then, and in that event, the
commissioner shall make a report of such violation or evasion to the cir-
cuit or corporation court, and the attorney for the Commonwealth of the
county or city wherein such violation or evasion of the law may occur.