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" (c) That the provisions of Section 9 of the Public Health Act,
1875, with regard to factories and workshops which are not kept
clean or are ill-ventilated or over-crowded, should be extended to
rooms in which home work is done, and power should be given to
sanitary and factory inspectors to inspect them, and secure the
enforcement of the law.
"The Acts affecting London appear sufficient to effect the inspection
of home workers' premises, and the removal of insanitary and unwholesome
conditions, but there is not sufficient power to prohibit work
being done in the premises until unwholesome conditions which may exist
are remedied. It is desirable that powers similar to those contained in
Section 110 of the Factory and Workshop Act, which gives the Sanitary
Authority power to prohibit work being given out or carried on in
premises in which there is infectious disease, should be given where
serious conditions exist likely to be detrimental to the health of the
workers, or where articles of clothing are liable to convey contamination
by vermin, &c. Section 108 of that Act was evidently intended to deal
with places likely to be injurious to the persons employed therein, but
a month must transpire after the making of the order before an offender
could be summoned for non-observance, and there is no means of
punishing him for having exposed his workpeople to such conditions
during that month, if he removes the insanitary state of affairs before
the summons is heard. With good class of employers giving out work
it is usually sufficient to intimate to them that a representation is to be
made to the Council with a view to an Order being made under
Section 108, but it is conceivable that there might be employers who
would not act on such warning. Where this Section 108 is applied to
home work, it can hardly be said that the employer ' exposes' the workpeople
to the insanitary conditions that may prevail in their homes, nor
is it in his power to 'remove the insanitary state of affairs' in premises
over which he has no control. At the same time, if the conditions were
so serious as to necessitate the stopping of work, it should be in the
power of the Council to enforce their Order within a less time than a
month.
" Further, there is no power to require persons taking work home to
give the names of those from whom they receive it. Such an employer
may not have sent in a list of the persons he employs, or he may have
taken on others after the date when he has to send in his list, so that
the Sanitary Authority would not have the new names until several
months had elapsed. Employers, instead of sending two lists a year,
might be required to send one list at the beginning of each year, and to
notify the Sanitary Authority at once when a new outworker was
employed or an old one changed his address.