302 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



contained in the open air is from 3 to 4 in 10,000 

 volumes ; in enclosed inhabited spaces this amount is, 

 of course, much exceeded, and we determined that 

 the limit of 9 per 10,000 should be adopted. 



In the following year another Act was passed, 

 empowering the Secretary of State to issue an order 

 making regulations embodying the recommendations, 

 and in 1901 a Factory and Workshops Act was passed 

 which is now part of the statute law. With regard 

 to the effect of our recommendations, the inspector 

 writes to me " that it is not too much to say that, as a 

 direct effect of the committee's work, the health 

 conditions of not less than 20,000 workers have been 

 enormously improved, the improvement in some in- 

 stances amounting to quite a revolution." 



The very satisfactory results of this legislation with 

 regard to moist weaving sheds encouraged the Govern- 

 ment to apply similar methods to factories and work- 

 shops in general, and a committee, of whom Dr. 

 Haldane, F.R.S., was the most important member, was 

 appointed for this purpose. This committee recom- 

 mended a lower limit of impurity than we had done, 

 and therefore the question arose whether it was desir- 

 able, in the interests of the health of the people, in like 

 manner to lower the chemical standard of ventilation 

 in the case of the weaving sheds. This matter came 

 up for discussion between the employers and the 

 employed; the workers, of course, wished to maintain 

 the higher standard; the manufacturers, on the other 

 hand, were desirous of relaxing conditions which they 

 considered too stringent. In consequence of this it 

 was arranged that an independent inquiry should be 

 made as to how far this higher standard was under all 

 conditions attained, and the Home Office and the 

 manufacturers agreed that Mr. Frank Scudder, F.I.C., 



