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connection with the Government Bill, to improve the law by providing
for the regulation of bakehouses. The Home Secretary
replied that the matter, "so far as relates to sanitation, was
rather a matter to be dealt with in a Public Health Bill." Consequently,
a further communication was made to the President
of the Local Government Board, who had charge of the Public
Health (London) Bill, informing him of the view taken by the
Home Secretary, and asking him to give effect to it in that
Bill. A reply was received stating that the suggestion would
receive the consideration of the Local Government Board. The
specific recommendation, that power should be given to regulate
bakehouses by bye-laws, was not embodied in the Public
Health Act; nor does it find a place in the Factory and Workshop
Act; nevertheless some additions were made in both
Acts to previously existing powers of Sanitary Authorties, for
securing cleanliness and other sanitary conditions in bakehouses.
This Factory and Workshop Act, moreover, imposes
some new and important duties on Sanitary Authorities and
their officers, who will henceforth have to perform a variety
of functions previously discharged by Factory Inspectors.
In taking note of the sanitary provisions of this measure it
will be necessary to refer also to the "principal Act" (Factory
and Workshop Act, 1878), and the amending Act (Factory and
Workshop Act, 1883), which restored to the Sanitary
Authorities that control over bakehouses which had unwisely
been taken away from them by the Act of 1878. All of these
Acts must for the present purpose therefore be read together,
and read also, I may add, with Sections 25 and 26 of the
Public Health (London) Act, 1891.
With these preliminary observations I pass on to observe that the
fourth section of the "principal Act" provides for notice to be given
by the Factory Inspector to the Sanitary Authority, of sanitary defects
in a factory or a workshop. It enacts that—