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"Where it appears to a Factory Inspector" that any act, neglect, or default
in relation to any drain, water-closet, ash-pit, water-
supply, nuisance, or other matter in a factory or workshop is punishable
or remediable under the law relating to public health, but not under
this Act, that Inspector shall give notice in writing of such act, &c., to
the Sanitary Authority" (of the district), whose duty it shall be "to
make such enquiry into the subject of the notice, and take such action
thereon, as to that Authority may seem proper for the purpose of enforcing
the law." The inspector, moreover, for the purposes of the
section, is authorised to "take with him into a factory or a workshop a
Medical Officer of Health, Inspector of Nuisances or other officer of the
Sanitary Authority."
I have never received such "notice in writing" from a Factory
Inspector, and indeed there have always been so few of these officers,
that it was practically impossible for them to discharge properly the
duties imposed on them by law, a fact to which probably it is due that
Parliament has now seen fit to delegate to the Metropolitan Sanitary
Authorities, under the provisions of the Public Health (London) Act,
1891, the duty of inspecting workshops, workplaces, and certain
factories also. That duty will, no doubt, be faithfully discharged,
because it is a duty. Anyhow, under the circumstances abovementioned,
section 2 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, need
have no terrors for Sanitary Authorities, although it enacts in
sub-section (2) that—
"Where notice of any act, neglect, or default is given by an Inspector under
section 4 of the principal Act above cited to a Sanitary
Authority, and proceedings are not taken within a reasonable time,
for punishing or remedying the act, neglect, or default, the Inspector
may take the like proceedings for punishing or remedying the same, as
the Sanitary Authority might have taken, and shall be entitled to
recover from the Sanitary Authority all such expenses in and about the
proceedings as the Inspector incurs, and are not recovered from any
other person, and have not been incurred in any unsuccessful
proceedings."
Sub-section (1) of this second section enacts that—
"Section 4 of the principal Act (1878) shall apply to workshops conducted
on the system of not employing any child, young person, or woman
therein, and to laundries.