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WORKSHOP SUPERVISION.
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thing under £76, whereas the total amount of interest paid during the longer period is over
£12,000 more than that paid for the shorter period. A postponement of the first instalment
of repayment is of greater value, as any buildings erected are not likely to come into
occupation and remunerative for one or more years.
The recommendations of the Select Committee cannot be stated so simply. Briefly the
proposal is to require a housing scheme in connection with every purchase of land involving
the displacement of persons of the working class, such requirement to apply to all undertakings,
whether by a company or a local authority. The Home Secretary is to be the judge
of the scheme needed to house the people displaced and may require a guarantee sufficient to
secure the carrying out of the scheme approved by him. Under certain conditions he may
certify that the provision of new accommodation is unnecessary.
As regards the first Report, legislation will be necessary to give effect to the recommendation,
but as regards the second, the adoption of model clauses and some amendments
of the Standing Orders of the Houses will be sufficient to make the recommendations effective.
WORKSHOP SUPERVISION.
By Sec. 132 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, the medical officer of health of
every district is required to "report specifically on the administration" of the Act in the
workshops and work-places in his district. Domestic workshops and factories are here
included as "workshops," while the term "work-place" is so wide as to include every place
where people meet to earn their livelihood.
The matters which are dealt with in workshop supervision under the Factory and
Workshop Act are:—
Cleanliness, including freedom from offensive effluvia;
Cubic space, including overcrowding;
Ventilation, both as to sufficiency and maintenance in good order; and
Wetness of floors, principally in laundries.
The provision of sufficient and suitable closet accommodation is secured under the Public
Health (London) Act, 1891.
The supervision of bakehouses and home workers are specially provided for under the
Factory and Workshop Act, 1901.
I he work of the Department was not satisfactorily organised until near the middle of
June, and consequently the returns do not represent a full year's work. The supervision of
workshops and work-places where women are employed is in the charge of Miss O'Kell and
M iss Nicolas. The former has the northern part of the Borough and the latter the southern.
The distribution of workshops in the Borough is so irregular that an arbitrary division has
been found necessary. Mr. Wansbrough looks after workshops where males only are employed
and assists in the inspection of other workshops as required. He has been specially employed
on bakehouses, to which he has been obliged to devote the greater part of his time.
Under Sec. 131 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, registers have to be kept of all
workshops in the Borough, and, under Sec. 107, records of the lists of homeworkers (outworkers)
sent in by employers, together with particulars of information transmitted to or received
from the officers of other districts. These duties involve a considerable amount of clerical
work, which is carried out by the Inspectors themselves.
The registers kept are in the form of books, inspection cards and manilla files. The cards
serve more as memoranda for reference at subsequent inspections, the Register required by the
Act being in book form. The files form the "dossiers" in which reports, &c., relating to each
workshop are stored. Outworkers and work-places are recorded in the same way, as many
of the rooms occupied by the former are workshops within the meaning of the Act, and the
latter may at any date become so by the employment of additional workers.