The Act also ensured the inspection of dwelling-houses where there were outworkers.
The work imposed on the Sanitary Authorities was very considerable as a very large number of premises came under their supervision, and every workroom in each workshop had to be measured in order that its cubic space might be ascertained; and when the subsequent routine inspection of the premises, and of outworkers’ premises, remedying of defects and other duties, were taken into consideration, the magnitude of the work, and the necessity of an adequate staff of officers, were evident.
The records show that at the end of 1904, 34,488 workshops in London were under the supervision of the local authorities. The necessity of inspection was demonstrated by the fact that 18,922 conditions required remedying.
Improvement was testified to by the Medical Officers of Health, overcrowding was diminished, and it was further stated that “employers are found to co-operate willingly with the local authorities in the remedy of faulty conditions.”
Altogether, then, when a comparison is made between the conditions of the factories and workshops, and workplaces in which the people worked in the middle of the last century and now, the contrast is remarkable. The worst of the evils have been swept away, and healthy conditions of work have taken their place.
And the limitations put upon the labour of children and young persons and women have all been to the good of those subjected to them. And the public health of London, so far as this very large and very valuable portion of the population is concerned, has been immensely the gainer.
The second of the three Acts since 1900, which had a vital bearing on the sanitary condition of the people of London, was “The Metropolis Water Act” of 1902.
That the water supply should be under the control and management of the municipality had long been advocated, but though hundreds of County and Municipal Authorities in Great Britain—many of them not the hundredth part of the size of London—had a Municipal Water Supply, that great boon was denied to London. The reform was vigorously pressed by the central representative body of London—the London County Council—and after several Royal Commissions of Inquiry, Parliament dealt with the subject in 1902. But the manner of dealing with it was unfortunate and retrograde.
A new public Board—the Metropolitan Water Board—was established for the purpose of acquiring, by purchase, for the inhabitants of London, and of certain areas outside London, the undertakings of the eight Metropolitan Water Companies, and for managing and carrying on the supply of water. The great bulk of the purchase money was to be provided by the ratepayers of London, and the great bulk of the debt to be a charge on the rateable property of London.
The Board was to consist of 66 members, 14 of whom were to be nominated by the London County Council, 31 by the Metropolitan Borough Councils and the City Corporation, and the remaining 21 by the authorities of localities outside London hitherto supplied by the Companies.