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sections of the Act which relate to the protection of the life
and health of the persons whom this class of legislation is
specially intended to benefit.
Section 1.
Fixes the amount of air space to be allotted to each worker
in a factory or workshop at 250 cubic feet at least during
the usual working hours, and at 400 cubic feet during any
period of overtime: but power is reserved for the Secretary
of State by an order to modify this portion for any time
during which artificial light, other than electric light, is
employed, and also as regards any particular manufacturing
process or handicraft.
And in order to facilitate the carrying out of these provisions,
sub-Section 3 provides that a notise shall be affixed
specifying the number of persons who may be employed in
each room of the factory or workshop, and in this matter
Section 78 of the principal Act shall apply to this Act; so
that in the event of any contravention of this provision, the
occupier of a workshop will be liable to a fine not exceeding
forty shillings.
Section 3.
Provides that where notice of an act, neglect, or fault is
given by a Factory Inspector to a Sanitary Authority, it
shall be the duty of the latter to inform the Inspector within
one month of the proceedings taken in consequence of such
notice. (The alternative which the Bill provided, of giving
power to the Inspector to take the necessary proceedings in
the event of the Sanitary Authority failing to do so, and to
recover the cost of so doing from the Sanitary Authority,
has been eliminated.)
Section 6
This section has also been amended. In the Bill it provided
that a penalty not exceeding £20 should be incurred
by the owner of a workshop or factory who permitted
wearing apparel to be made, cleaned, or repaired, in any
building in which an inmate was suffering from small-pox
or scarlet fever.
In the Act as it now stands, occupiers of laundries or any
place from which work is given out, and any contractor
employed by any occupier, shall be liable to a penalty which
is now reduced to £10 for infringement of this Section. The
liability will not, however, be incurred if the occupier, &c.,
proves that he was not aware of the illness, and could not
reasonably have been expected to have become aware of it.
Section 22
Places laundries for the first time under the Factory and
Workshop Acts; those in which steam, water, or other
mechanical power is used in aid of the laundry process being
classed as factories, and every other laundry as a workshop.