(a) that the occupier of the factory or workshop has used all due diligence to enforce the execution of the Act; and

(b) by what person the offence has been committed; and (c) that it has been committed without the knowledge, consent, or connivance of the occupier and in contravention of his orders,

the inspector must proceed against the person whom he believes to be the actual offender without first proceeding against the occupier of the factory or workshop.

ADMINISTRATION BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES

This heading consists mainly of a summary of what has already been said elsewhere. Under Section 2 certain sanitary provisions as to workshops are to be administered by the District Council1 of the locality and their medical officer of health (see p. 176). Under Sections 14 and 15 District Councils have certain duties and powers as to the provision of means of escape in case of fire (see p. 182). Under Section 102 a retail bakehouse is to be under the District Council and not an inspector (see p. 204). Under Sections 107 to 110 certain duties are placed upon the District Council in respect of home-workers (see p. 194). The danger of administration by local authorities is that the authority may be composed of persons whose interests, direct and indirect, are in conflict with their duties, and it is therefore necessary to have powers in reserve in case of timid or insufficient local action.

Under Section 4 the Secretary of State has power to act in default of the local authority (see p. 177).

Under Section 5 an inspector has power to give notice to the District Council of sanitary defects which have come to his knowledge, and which they have power to deal with (see pp. 177-8).

Under Sections 131 and 132 every District Council must keep a register of all workshops situate within their district; and the medical officer of health of every District Council,

1 See note to p. 177.

in his annual report to them, must report specifically on the administration of the Act in workshops and workplaces, and he must send a copy of his annual report, or so much of it as deals with this subject, to the Secretary of State.

Under Section 133, where any woman, young person, or child is employed in a workshop in which no abstract of the Act is affixed as by the Act required, and the medical officer of the District Council becomes aware thereof, he must forthwith give written notice thereof to the inspector for the district.

STATISTICS AS TO ADMINISTRATION

Every year the Chief Inspector of Factories makes an annual report as to the work of his department and presents it to Parliament. The following information is taken from his report for the year 1913:

At the end of the year 1913 the United Kingdom was divided into 62 districts, in charge of a staff of 217 inspectors and assistants, of whom 20 were women. They had under their charge over one hundred and twenty thousand factories, and over one hundred and fifty thousand workshops, exclusive of docks, wharves, quays, warehouses, buildings, railway lines and sidings, men's workshops, home-work premises, and workplaces under inspectors of mines. Some of these special classes are of considerable importance, thus docks, etc., number over four thousand, and warehouses over four thousand five hundred. The number of effective visits paid by the inspectors is about 50 per cent above the number of factories and workshops, but as some places are visited more than once a year it does not follow that every workplace is visited at least once a year; apparently in 1913 about 9 per cent of them escaped a visit from the inspectors. These visits resulted in the issue of nearly two hundred thousand contravention notices.' Roughly one-fifth of these were in respect of the fencing of machinery, and one-fifth related to the posting of abstracts and keeping of registers. The other three-fifths are classified under 24 different headings, and no separate item reaches 10 per cent of the total. In most cases a notice of contravention is effective, and the

total number of prosecutions was 3872, from which 3740 convictions were obtained.

The report throws much light on the extent to which Special Orders have increased the scope of the Act.

Works under the Particulars Section (see Chapter XII.) now number thirty-seven thousand, of which only ten thousand are textile factories or workshops. In the last ten years the non-textile works brought under this Section have increased from 3355 to 27,024.

Works under regulations or special rules are over sixty-two thousand in number. Ten years ago they only numbered 8707. It should be noticed, however, that the electricity regulations account for over forty-two thousand workplaces.

Besides making visits, the inspectors are the recipients of notices as to overtime, variation of working hours, accidents, etc.

The total of these notices was over half a million, the largest classes being over two hundred thousand overtime reports, and nearly one hundred and eighty thousand notices of accidents from occupiers of workplaces.

The co-operation of inspectors with Local Authorities is shown by the fact that inspectors made over ten thousand representations to Local Authorities on sanitary matters under Section 5, and about thirteen hundred representations as to provision of means of escape in case of fire under Section 14, Sub-section 5. The adoption of by-laws regarding these means of escape in factories and workshops in which not more than 40 persons are employed (see Section 15 and p. 184), is becoming more general, and at the end of 1913 such by-laws, following closely a model code drawn up by the Home Office, were in force in the districts of 35 Local Authorities.

The number of certifying surgeons is 2364. The number of ordinary medical examinations made by them was as follows: In respect of children under 14 to be employed as half-timers, over forty thousand; in respect of young persons under 14, over ninety thousand; in respect of young persons between 14 and 16, nearly four hundred thousand.

Under various regulations and special rules, certifying surgeons have to examine medically certain classes of workers on account of the dangerous nature of the work on which they are engaged. There were about two hundred and thirty thousand of these examinations, as against one hundred and twenty thousand ten years ago.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MINING INDUSTRY

SINCE the year 1872 mines have been divided for the purposes of legislation into two classes: (a) Coal mines, and mines having many of the characteristics of coal mines, viz. mines of stratified ironstone, mines of shale, and mines of fireclay; and (b) metalliferous mines, a general class comprising all such mines as do not fall within the first class.

The working of coal mines is now mainly carried on under a consolidating Act passed in 1911, viz. the Coal Mines Act, 1911 (amended slightly by the Coal Mines Act, 1914), while metalliferous mines are still working under the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act, 1872 (amended by three later and quite short Acts). The Coal Mines Act, 1911, left untouched the previous legislation as to Checkweighing.

It would be impossible, without devoting some hundreds of pages of this book to the subject, to give in detail the whole of the existing legislation as to mines, but at the same time there is much in mining legislation which is of interest to the student of industrial law, and accordingly a summary is given in this chapter of the existing law as to coal mines, metalliferous mines and quarries, with references to the documents which can furnish the reader with full details, while in Appendix XI. detailed matter of interest for purposes of comparison or for other reasons is set out in full. A brief sketch of the history of mining legislation is given in the next chapter.

LEGISLATION AS TO COAL MINES

Definition of Coal Mines.-The Coal Mines Act, 1911, applies (Section 1) to mines of coal, mines of stratified ironstone, mines of shale, and mines of fireclay.