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"work back. These provisions, and the power which the local authority possesses
"under section 108 of the Factory Act of prohibiting homework in unwholesome
"premises, constitute the chief statutory protection of this class of workers against
"'sweating'— but it is impossible to enforce them unless full information as to the
"names and addresses of the outworkers is available. I may add here that the
"Secretary of State would gladly welcome the co-operation of the local authority
"and its officers in calling the attention of the Factory Inspectors to any apparent
"breach of the Truck Acts or 'Particulars' section in the case of outworkers in
"their district. The notes appended may be of interest to the Council and their
"officers as showing broadly the irregularities which may be remediable if brought
''to the notice of the Factory Inspector.
"Secondly, the Secretary of State would call the special attention of the Council
to their powers under section 108, which was introduced into the Factory Act
with the object of preventing industrial work being carried on in dwellings under
"less wholesome conditions than are required by law in workshops, and thus dealing
"with some of the worst features of what is known as the ' sweating' system. The
"Return enclosed shows that for the whole of the United Kingdom only 99 notices
"are recorded as having been issued under this section, 41 of which are accounted
"for by the County of Wiltshire alone.
"Finally, as regards the preparation of the figures and other information for
"insertion in the Tables of the Medical Officer of Health. These Tables are the
"only means by which any exact statistical information as regards the homework
"of the country can be obtained. The figures if correctly filled in will afford
"information of the greatest value to the State in dealing with the subject of home"work.
The preparation of the Return presented to Parliament has shown that in
"several respects the Tables can be made clearer and simpler. They will accordingly
"be revised before being issued, as usual, in December, but in the meantime, I am
"to enclose a form showing the particulars the Secretary of State will ask the
"Council to furnish at the end of the year through their Medical Officer of Health.
"Several headings in the previous Tables have been omitted, and one addition of
"importance has been made. He proposes to ask the Council to classify the
"information as to lists of outworkers, &c., according to the nature of the business
"carried on by the employer. The list furnished by the employer to the local
"authority is required to state this.
"The Secretary of State would ask that special care should be taken in com"piling
the figures regarding the lists of outworkers and the number of outworkers.
"In some cases in the 1904 Tables, the number of lists was given without the
"number of outworkers, or vice versa. Also, the figures of addresses of outworkers
"furnished to and received from other local authorities were very defective. For
"the whole country the totals of these two sets of figures instead of nearly balancing
"as they should have done, showed a divergence of over 7,000. One very impor"tant
point is the manner in which the case of an occupier who only furnishes one
"list in the year instead of two, as required by the Act, should be dealt with in
"filling up the Tables. The figure asked for in the first two columns of the Table
"is the total number of lists received and the total number of outworkers included
"in the lists. Thus, to take a simple instance, if there are 100 employers in the
"district giving outwork to, in all, 1,000 outworkers, there should he 200 lists and
"2,000 outworkers returned in the Table. If, therefore, an occupier has, for
"whatever reason, only furnished one list, a source of error is introduced which