View report page

70
These were submitted to the Local Government Board,
who objected, inter alia, to their being made only applicable to
such houses as were registered by the sanitary authority as
lodging houses, and after considerable correspondence the Board
signified their willingness to approve an amended set of bylaws
made applicable to all houses below a certain rent
limit. The Public Health and the Law and Parliamentary
Committees recommended the adoption of these by-laws, but
they were referred back by the Council in January, 1903.
Amended by-laws were submitted to the Council by the
Public Health Committee in April, 1903, but the Council
amended them further by striking out the exemption classes,
thus making them applicable to all houses in which rooms
are let to lodgers, irrespective of rent limit. To this the Local
Government Board refused to agree, and eventually by-laws
with an exemption clause were approved by the Council in
July, 1903, and confirmed by the Local Government Board.
Two decisions in the Court of Kings Bench, shortly after
this, were to the effect that similar by-laws made by two other
Metropolitan boroughs were bad, inasmuch as they contained
no provision for a notice to the owners in certain cases of
infringement of them.
New by-laws to meet this difficulty were framed by the
Public Health Committee and submitted to the Council in April,
1905, but were referred back, objection being taken to the high
rent limit of the exemption clause. The Public Health
Committee again considered the by-laws, and resolved to
inform the Local Government Board that they objected to any
by-laws which did not allow the local authority discretionary
power as to the houses which are to be registered.
Councillor Palmer, Chairman of the Public Health Committee,
Councillor Easton, the Town Clerk, and the Medical Officer of
Health then had an interview with the representatives of the
Local Government Board, who informed them that the Board
would not approve of by-laws which were to be applicable only
to such houses as the local authority registered as lodging-