Page:How contagion and infection are spread, through the sweating system in the tailoring trade.djvu/26

20 is only in such laws and their proper administration that a safe remedy is to be found. Your committee are of opinion—That it should be a duty upon all manufacturers to find workshop accommodation for those they employ, whether the number be many or few. That any part or parts of a dwelling house so occupied should be considered a factory, and should be so registered for the purposes of any Act of Parliament made to apply to their supervision, and that all rules and acts made for the inspection and regulation of factories and workshops should be applied equally in all cases."

The following extract is from the Nottingham and Midland Counties' Daily Express, February 24th, 1877:—

".—The adjourned meeting of this body was held on Tuesday night, Mr. Coyne presiding. The minutes of the previous meeting having been adopted, the committee gave in their report on the 'sweating' system in the tailoring and bootmaking trades as follows:—'Your committee think the report would be incomplete without giving the facts which led to the inquiry. We think their reproduction as part of the report will make the Council see the need for some steps being taken to lessen the consequences of this thirst for profit, which has tempted employers of labour to let off rooms for the sake of a money benefit, while they drive their workpeople to labour in places already over-crowded by the presence of numerous offspring for which the poor worker cannot find sufficient room. [The report here alluded to cases of fever resulting from the sweating system, mentioned in the resolutions brought before the Trades Union Congress held in Glasgow and Newcastle, which have already been published by us.] Your committee are bound to state that in this, as in all other old towns, there are places which are not fit for human habitations, but in which the poor are forced to reside; and many operatives of the tailoring and bootmaking trades may be seen taking home work from the different business places of the town to these miserable 'dens,' which, as residences, only germinate epidemics which undermine the health of all who are forced to reside there. And when we think of these places being made the workshops for tailoring and bootmaking purposes, we are, to use the mildest expression, seriously pained. We have not a word to say against the steady, honest man who tries to get a business together by setting off a part of his house for a workroom, though we think that even in such a case there should be a regular inspection under the Workshops Regulation Act. We think the tailors and their customers should pay this matter more attention than they have hitherto done, from the fact that only one house in the trade has all the work done on the premises. Three first-class tailoring establishments in the town have entirely closed their workrooms during the last eighteen months, and now employ none but out-workers, and the other first-class houses all more or less work by this system. Of the second-class shops your committee find only two where the work is done on the premises. The co-operative store, which we thought would be found all right, has lately adopted the 'sweating' system in their tailoring business, thus coming down to the level of all the others of this class, who employ 'sweaters' only. We are strongly of opinion that public attention has only to be drawn to so great an evil to obtain a remedy, and we think the best remedy is to put under the Workshops Act the whole of the places where any sort of manufacturing industry is carried on. This, with a thorough inspection, according to such a law (if it were not allowed to become a dead letter) would soon make the trades of tailoring and bootmaking better for the workers and for the customers. The Tailors' Society are about to hold a conference in London shortly, and we hope they will be able to make an impression on the Home Office in reference to this question. Your committee adopt the paper circulated by the Scottish tailors, as best calculated to show the dangers to be apprehended from the indiscriminate adoption of the 'sweating' principle, in which we think the cheapening process is carried too far.' This report was, after an animated discussion, adopted by the Council; and a resolution was agreed to that the borough members should be written to on the subject, and asked to support a measure which would bring the places where work is carried on under the Workshops Act."