“Considerable opposition was manifested by builders before the Secretary of State.”
But, nevertheless, the regulations were sanctioned and approved.
And in the same year (1878) Parliament had passed an Act which materially improved the sanitary conditions under which men, women, and children worked in factories and workshops.[146]
Guided by experience, Parliament had gradually been extending the operation of the previous Acts from one trade to another, and as Lord Shaftesbury said:—
“The general result had been to introduce and establish a system of order, content, and satisfaction. The children in the factories presented quite a different appearance from that which was their characteristic in former times; they were now hale and stout.”
And the Factory and Workshops Royal Commission[147] in 1876 wrote:—
“The improvement in the sanitary arrangements and ventilation of factories had been most marked in recent years; and the cases in which young persons and women suffer in labour unfitted for their years, or in which young persons and women suffer physically from overwork, are now, we believe, as uncommon as formerly they were common.
“Much of this great improvement is undoubtedly due to factory legislation.”
The Act directed that:—