§ MR. JOWETT (Bradford, W.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the list of subjects upon which candidates for appointment as inspectors of factories and workshops (women) are selected does not include factory law and sanitary science; and whether he will consider the 530 desirability of substituting a knowledge of these subjects for English literature from Shakespeare to Wordsworth, French, German, or Italian, having regard to the act that such inspectors have supervisory powers over some of the work of local sanitary authorities, whose fully qualified inspectors have, in certain cases, only the power to report complaints to the factory inspector.
§ MR. GLADSTONEAll inspectors, men and women, with one or two special exceptions, are required to pass an examination in factory law and sanitary science before being finally appointed on the staff. The examination is taken at the end of the first two years of service during which period an inspector is on probation. I may add, with reference to the last part of the Question, that all inspectors on probation act under the direction of senior inspectors.