View report page

44
which cannot, if it will, seriously attack it. In a recent
case in which I prosecuted an occupier for not affixing this
notice, and informed the court that his workshop was
usually overcrowded, the magistrate very pertinently asked
why I had not taken proceedings with regard to the overcrowding.
The answer, if obvious, is not satisfactory.
The present position is more than unsatisfactory, and is a
glaring instance of the unfortunate results of a dual
control. It is a blot upon factory administration that an
evil, more serious than most with which our department
has to deal, should grow unchecked before our eyes. There
appears to be only two possible remedies for this condition.
Either the administrative and legal powers of the local
sanitary authorities should be increased, or the administration
of the law as to overcrowding should rest in the first
instance with us. If the local authority had a staff
sufficient to provide for systematic inspection, by night
as well as by day, and if it were empowered to proceed
against an occupier in flagrante delicto, without the cumbrous
preliminary of a notice to abate a nuisance, there
would be reasonable grounds for hoping that the evils of
overcrowding would be checked. In the provinces a
sanitary authority has the same power with regard to
taking proceedings as one of H.M. Inspectors of Factories,
and it is not quite clear why this power is withheld from a
sanitary authority within the area of the Public Health
(London) Act. On the other hand there appear to be
grounds for distinguishing the question of overcrowding
from other sanitary provisions contained in the Act, which
fall within the province of the local authority. It is
unquestionable that the local authority is the proper
power to deal with questions of drainage, W.C. accommodation,
&c., in regard to which its officers are experts.
But, owing to the precise definition contained in section 1
of the Act of 1895, overcrowding is now simply a question
of fact, involving no opinion, expert or otherwise.