The case for the factory acts / edited by Mrs. Sidney Webb ; with a preface by Mrs. Humphrey Ward.
- Date:
- 1902
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The case for the factory acts / edited by Mrs. Sidney Webb ; with a preface by Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Source: Wellcome Collection.
188/260 page 168
![check on the individual idiosyncrasies of particular ministers or their advisers. As essential to pro- gress as this critical spirit, is the public desire for systematic and logical progress in the protection of the standard of life of all the nation's workers. The strength of the measure which any Government can carry must depend on the degree in which the general public, the workers and their representa- tives in the House of Commons, appreciate the “ defects ” of the existing Acts and the support which they bring to the Government in carrying progressive proposals into law. [Since the first edition of this book was printed off (July 1901), the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, has become law. Unfortunately, this Act embodies hardly any of the suggestions put forward in the preceding chapter. The Factory Acts have, it is true, now been consolidated into a single statute, but without any simplification of the law. Practically nothing has been accomplished for its amendment. The so-called “emergency processes” (p. 137) are still the subject of special exemp- tions, though these are now limited in their scope. No effective provision is made for regulating home-work. Practically no advance has been made in the campaign against overtime. The law as to laundries has been left absolutely unchanged. The dangerous tendency to transfer the administration from the Home Office to the local authorities still con- tinues. On the other hand, it is a gain to have got rid of arbitration with regard to the special rules for dangerous trades (pp. 161-3), though time has yet to prove whether the new clause will be effective. With regard to home-work, it may be noted, as an alternative to the reform suggested at p. 148, that another Bill on the subject has been drafted by the Women’s Industrial Council and the Scottish Council for Women’s Trades. This Bill, which will be re-introduced in the session of 1902 by Colonel Denny, M.P., provides that industries may not be carried on in any dwelling-house unless the home has been licensed by a factory inspector as being suitable for such work. No employer or “giver-out of work” may give out work to be done in unlicensed premises, the license being shown to him by the home-worker.—Editor.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24850457_0188.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
