§ MR. SEXTONI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has considered a resolution of the Belfast United Trades Council, in which it is represented that about 50,000 females are engaged in the 1337 textile industries of Belfast, and that the appointment of a female Inspector for that city is absolutely essential; and whether it is intended to appoint any female Inspectors of Factories for Ireland?
§ MR. ASQUITHYes. No female Inspector is appointed for any particular place—they are all peripatetic. Miss Abraham has already visited Belfast, and I understand will do so again before long. An assistant male Inspector has been appointed to the Belfast district. A special inquiry has recently been conducted under my instructions into the linen factories of Belfast, with the result that Rules have been framed which will, I hope, largely mitigate the mortality and disease which have hitherto prevailed.
§ MR. SEXTONIs it intended to appoint a resident female Inspector in Ireland, or are they all to be peripatetic?
§ MR. ASQUITHThey are appointed in the latter sense.
§ MR. J. BURNSMay I ask whether, considering the large number of women and girls employed in Belfast, it would not, be an advantage from a sanitary point of view to have a resident female Inspector in the city?
§ MR. ASQUITHThe Home Department are obliged to economise in these matters, and I do not see the prospect of having more than four female Inspectors for the whole of Great Britain and Ireland. In these circumstances, I cannot undertake that any one of them should be permanently resident in any one centre of industry.
§ MR. J. BURNSIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is the general opinion among persons interested in this question that in consequence of the large number of women and girls engaged in this trade one female Inspector should be resident at Belfast?
§ MR. ASQUITHI am not aware that such is the case.