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27
sends forth smoke in such quantities as to be a nuisance, notwithstanding that the smoke
is not black smoke. Further, the expression smoke includes soot, ash, grit and gritty
particles.
There is, however, a new defence for the person charged with an offence under the Act,
i.e., if such person is able to prove that he has used the best practical means for preventing
the nuisance having regard to all the circumstances. This defence does not apply if the
smoke emitted is black smoke.
Power is given the local authority to make bye-laws, but the City Corporation do not
at this juncture propose to take advantage of this power.
The appropriate Committee of the London County Council, who had before them the
question of such bye-laws, invited the views of the City Corporation on the suggestion that:—
"emission of black smoke for two minutes in the aggregate within any continuous
"period of thirty minutes should be deemed to be an offence."
Such a bye-law would permit without penalty the continuous emission, during any half-hour
of the day, of smoke for any period under two minutes, and it is clear that this would, in
a congested area such as the City, constitute a very real nuisance. In my opinion it is not
desirable to set up any hard-and-fast rule as to how long any particular chimney shall be
permitted to send forth smoke. The law now enables local authorities to deal with this
question, and in my view each infringement can best be dealt with on its merits.
The proposal to establish a permanent Committee of representatives of the London
County Council, the City Corporation, the Metropolitan Borough Councils, the neighbouring
authorities within the area of Greater London, and important industrial associations intimately
concerned with smoke consumption, is one with which I am in hearty accord. It is
intended that this Committee will act in an advisory capacity. The advantages of cooperation
between local authorities and industrial associations are manifest, and this cooperation
will doubtless ensure that the maximum benefit is derived from the Public
Health (Smoke Abatement) Act, 1926.
CREMATION.
Although cremation is not gaining ground so rapidly as in the case of Continental
countries like Czecho-Slovakia, Scandinavia, Switzerland or Germany, in which latter
country there are 81 Crematoria in operation and a total of 45,000 cremations carried out
during 1926, the figures inserted in the following table of cremations carried out in Great
Britain indicate that this method of disposal of the dead is gradually appealing to a wider
circle, and I am sure that it is only a question of appropriate educative action before it
will be very much more largely adopted.
Among prominent persons in public life whose bodies were cremated in the past year
may be included Sir Edward Marshall Hall, K.C., Sir Thos. Granger, the Earl Amherst,
Israel Zangwill and others.