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accommodation is provided in connection with their workshop or
workplace. The dismissal of workpeople as a result of the administration
of the Factory and Workshops Acts is not desirable, nor
calculated to make employers of labour sympathetic towards
factory and workshop legislation; but is calculated to provoke a
sense of injury, and opposition to workshop legislation. Is the
latter arrangement satisfactory? In many cases I think it is an
arrangement which in practice does not work well.
To those who would force all small workshops in private
dwellings to close, and drive all labour into large factories or
workshops the above suggestions (1 and 2) would be condemned;
for, obviously, the way to bring such a condition about is to make the
lot of the small employer of labour as hard as possible, and no more
effectual means exists than to press literally upon him the various
sections of the Factory and Workshops Acts, but I am of opinion
that to bring about such a result would be lamentable, and here
draw attention to the subject of separate sanitary conveniences,
with the hope that the Home Office will deal with this aspect
of the question.
Ventilation and Heating.—To see that workshops shall be
provided with adequate means of ventilation, and that such
ventilation shall be maintained is the duty of the local authority;
to see that a proper degree of temperature is maintained is the
duty of the Home Office through their Inspectors. Now the
ventilation and heating of a building are so interdependent that
the two matters cannot satisfactorily be separated and dealt with
by two authorities. I am of opinion that that part of the Factory
and Workshop Act dealing with the heating of workshops should
be handed over to the local authority, or that dealing with
ventilation should also be administered by the Home Office.
The present system is altogether unsatisfactory, and produces
needless friction between the officers of the two authorities, and
is also needlessly worrying to employers of labour.