View report page

34
In one of the London parishes where the Local Authority, as
an experiment, provided a single bath for the purposes of this Act,
no less than 148 persons within the space of one month attended to
cleanse their person and have their clothes disinfected. This result
has been so gratifying to the Local Authority that they have resolved
to provide additional bathing accommodation and disinfecting
apparatus.
CUSTOMS AND INLAND REVENUE ACTS, 1890.
Under the provisions of the above Act, I inspected 316 tenement
houses on fifteen applications made to me for certificates for exemption
from inhabited house duty. I found in a large number of
cases that the dwellings were not in such a condition as to justify me
in giving the necessary certificate unless considerable repairs were
done. These in all cases were completed, according to notice, and
the certificate furnished to the owner.
I find that it is the rule of those who impose the inhabited
house duty, to accept the certificate of the Medical Officer of Health
for the whole period during which the assessment is made, and this
is usually for a period of five years. Now, I do not believe that it
was the intention of the Legislature that one certificate of the
Medical Officer of Health should last five years. Anyone having experience
of tenement property knows well that at the end of twelve
months from the granting of the certificate much of the property
is not in a state to "afford suitable accommodation for each of the
families or persons dwelling therein, and that due provision is
made for their sanitary requirements."
I believe this relief of exemption from inhabited house duty
was intended to encourage the provision of a class of tenements for
the working classes, which shall be thoroughly sanitary and shall be
kept in such a state; but the acceptance by the Inland Revenue
Authorities of one certificate for five years is calculated to defeat
this object. The owners of this class of property should be required
to produce a certificate every year before obtaining the exemption
from inhabited house duty.