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54 WORKSHOP SUPERVISION.
(f) The number of cases of non-compliance and the number of prosecutions under Sees. 107, 108,
109 and 110 ; and
(g) The number of medical officers of health reporting specially on the administration of those
sections."
Inasmuch as 727 medical officers of health (of whom 206 held office in England and
Wales, 35 in Scotland, and 486 in Ireland) out of 2,959 made no report for 1904* to the
Home Office, the figures contained in the Return afford no accurate estimate of the numbers
of outworkers, or criterion of the administrative procedure in relation thereto. The figures
for the Metropolis are, possibly, an exception, and seem to be worth quoting.
Section 107, Lists of Outworkers:—
3,812 lists were received, containing 33,821 addresses, the lists sent to other authorities
contained 16,658 addresses and those received 10,002.
The total of 3,812 lists is the sum of those received in February and August. Consequently
the number of outworkers in the Metropolis would be (very approximately) 16,910. The
inspections of premises during the year were returned as numbering 13,283, involving 1,307
notices and 2 prosecutions. Two hundred and thirty-six cases of infectious disease of all
descriptions were reported as having occurred at outworkers' premises.
The most interesting part of the Return is to be found in the introductory letter.
Speaking of the incompleteness of the returns and the untrustworthy character of the
statistics, the writer remarks :—
"Further, if the returns had been complete there would still remain considerable sources of error,
which would vitiate the result. The first is that the same outworker may work for more
than one firm, and will, therefore, appear in several lists. There is no means of eliminating
duplicate entries. Another source of error is that the list kept by the occupier, of which
he furnishes a copy to the local authority, may contain names of persons who are 'on his
books' as having been employed by him, but are not actually employed when the list is
sent in. On the other hand, it is to be borne in mind also that the names required to be
entered by the person giving out the work in the lists, are the names of persons directly
employed by him. Persons who assist in the work, other than the person to whom it is
given out, would not appear."
If sub-section 1 of Section 107 be strictly interpreted, the occupiers of factories and
workshops taking orders from the occupiers of other factories and workshops or contractors
would be included in the lists of "outworkers" kept by the latter, as well as the "single
workers" who take small jobs to be done in their homes. As an example, the case
of a retail draper, having his own workshop, who gives an order to a wholesale house,
may be quoted. The draper would be in the position of a "contractor," and the
wholesale house in that of an "outworker," although the latter may execute the order
in a factory or workshop where a large number of workers are employed, and already
on the Register as such. Such interpretation can hardly have been contemplated by the
drafter of the Act.
Another point is, when is an outworker to be considered as "on the books" of any
occupier of a factory or workshop? Perhaps the question may be better put thus: how
long is an outworker to be considered as on the books? Suppose a single job is given (say)
in February after that month's return has been sent in. Should that "outworker" be
*Medical officers of health were requested for the first time to include tables prepared by the Home Office
in their reports for 1904, and consequently some allowances have to be made both for incomplete comprehension
of the new forms and, as the forms for 1904 were not issued until the beginning of 1905, inability to get out the
required information.