MR. WEBSTERI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to the report in The Daily News of 21st June, 1893, of the death of Harriett Watters, aged 17 years, from chronic lead poisoning, incurred whilst employed in using carbonite of lead for enamelling purposes; if, under the Lead Acts, it is legal to employ a female of under 18 years in works where this deadly product is used; if his attention has been called to the recent death of Thomas Bishop, of 77, Sherwin Street, Bromley, from the effect of lead poisoning, whilst employed in the white lead works of Messrs. Johnson, of Limehouse, and that the Coroner, Mr. Wynne E. Baxter, remarked at the inquest of the latter that the work must always be dangerous whatever was done, and, further, that men only resorted to this dangerous occupation when they could get nothing else to do; if any Report has been made to him of nine recent serious cases of lead poisoning, incurred by operatives employed in the use of white lead in the Wolverhampton District, as reported in The Daily Chronicle of 28th June last, the correspondent of which paper further states that there were 12 in-patients suffering from lead poisoning in 1892, and seven in 1891, whilst the number of out-patients suffering from the same cause was, approximately, 84 for 1892, and 52 for 1891; and whether he is prepared to take measures during this Session to prevent the serious loss of life and health incurred by those employed in white lead works, and the especial danger to female workers under the existing system in common use?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH, Fife, E.)My attention has been called to the cases referred to in the first, third, and fourth paragraphs; and as I stated the other day, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, the whole subject is being carefully investigated by the Home Office Committee now inquiring into the white lead industry. It is not illegal to employ females under 18 in enamelling works, but no child or young person may be employed in the process of making white lead. As soon as the Committee has made its Report I shall be in a position to determine whether any, and what, amendment is necessary, either of the special rules now in force or of the legislation affecting these industries.
§ MR. ASQUITHNo; but the inquiry is being prosecuted as expeditiously as possible.