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44
The Act is divided into ten parts, of which the first relates to
Health and Safety.
Health.—All the provision of the older Acts with regard to the sanitary
condition and overcrowding of factories, workshops, and workplaces are here
reproduced. It will be remembered that the Factory Acts of 1891 and 1895
made provision for the cubical space which should be allowed in factories
and workshops accommodating a certain number of workers. These
sections are re-enacted, but it is now provided by Section III (3) of the new
Act that if a workshop or workplace (not being a domestic workshop) is
occupied by day as a workshop and by night as a sleeping place, the
Secretary of State may increase or otherwise modify the amount of cubical
space prescribed. If the Home Secretary is satisfied that the provision of
the Act and of the law relating to public health, so far that it affects
factories, workshops, and workplaces are not carried out by any District
Council (which term inoludes Borough Councils), he may authorise an
Inspector to take the necessary proceedings for an enforcement of the Act.
The duty of attending to the sanitary condition of workshops has always
been imposed, in the first instance, upon the Sanitary Authority; but any
default on the part of the District Council to carry out the provisions of
this Act, or of the law relating to Public Health in so far as it affects
factories, workshops and workplaces may in future be remedied by immediate
action on the part of an Inspector, who may recover the expenses incurred
by him from the District Council in default (Section IV). The air in factories
must he kept at a reasonable temperature by some method which will not
interfere with its purity. The Secretary of State may require thermometers
to be kept in convenient places (Section VI). Ventilation, which was
formerly required only in factories where gases and vapours were generated
to an injurious extent, and in a few other cases, is now compulsory in every
factory and workshop (Section VII). The standard of ventilation is to be
prescribed by the Secretary of State (Section VII (i). The cost of providing
suitable means of ventilation may be apportioned between owner and occupier.
Section VIII provides for the draining of floors-in places where processes are
carried on which render the floor liable to wet.
New and important provisions are made in order to prevent the spread
of infectious disease in domestic workshops. By Section cx it is provided
that, if the inmate of a house is suffering from an infectious disease required
to be notified under the law for the time being in force in relation to the
notification of infectious diseases, the District Council may make an order
forbidding any work to be given to any persons in that house. In a case of
urgency, the powers conferred on the District Council by the section may