§ Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKI wish to draw attention to the evidence given at the inquest upon the victims of the disastrous fire in the City of London in which eight unfortunate girls lost their lives. I do not desire to score a political point or to insinuate that the Home Office was in any way responsible for that loss of life. I take up this question in order to give the Home Secretary an opportunity of allaying the great apprehension there must be in the minds of those who work upon celluloid that their lives are in danger. There is no doubt that the present unsatisfactory state of the Regulations is a serious menace to those who work in celluloid. I think Miss Constance Smith, who appeared at the inquest, is in a position to speak with authority on this matter. The first point which she emphasises is that it should be impossible for anybody to turn a harmless business like dressmaking into a business where thousands of sheets of celluloid are stored without giving notice to anybody responsible for the safety of life in the case of fire. The next point is that it is possible in a congested area like the City of London to store a vast amount of this very explosive material and to accumulate a kind of magazine without taking any special precautions for the extinguishing of fire in case a fire breaks 2772 out. Instead of adequate hoses in this last fatal fire, there was only one bucket provided which the workmen used for washing purposes. Over the window which was the only means of escape, there was no notice, and that is a point specially for the Home Office. It is the duty of the Home Office to see that such notices are put up. The district inspector of factories said that he had no doubt it was the duty of the Home Office to see to that matter, but he said that with his present staff it is quite impossible to do that because they were not able to get round.
During the Home Office debate my hon. Friends and myself raised the question of the adequacy of the inspectorship. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will remember that this loss of life was a good deal due to the fact that owing to inadequate inspectorship there was no notice placed over the means of escape. Another point is that in regard to articles made from celluloid there are no existing regulations. There is an excellent memorandum drawn up by Dr. Whitelegge, but the adoption in the recommendation of that memorandum is not obligatory upon anybody, and the particular manufacturer concerned in this fire had never heard of those regulations. Not long ago the Home Office said there was no need for special regulations in dealing with celluloid; but the London County Council were so impressed with the need of special regulations in regard to this subject that only lately they applied to Parliament; but the regulations they desired were not passed by the Special Committee. I think we ought to have special regulations to stop the using of naked lights where celluloid is used, and it is nothing short of a scandal that such lights should have been used. There is no question that if the girls working on the premises where the fire occurred had received fire drill this loss of life would not have occurred. These are the special points which I want to emphasise, and I feel sure I shall receive a satisfactory and sympathetic reply from the Home Secretary, and I hope he will use his best endeavours to deal with this matter. I think that is the least he can do. This is a very sad and lamentable case which resulted in the loss of the lives of eight unfortunate girls, and it would be some small satisfaction to their parents and relatives to feel that they had not died in vain, and that the Home Office are going to adopt more stringent and vigilant regulations for the safety of workers in celluloid and other things.