In the long, and on the whole beneficial, discussion of
Monday on the Bill for regulating workshops and factories,
Bin Asquith made a speech which revealed in a curious way the good and bad tendencies of the interfering spirit which marks the legislation of to-day. The Home Secretary proposed to abolish underground bakeries for the future altogether,— an enormous improvement. Such bakehouses are constructed only to avoid the cost of rental, and they involve not only a 'dangerous want of ventilation for the bakers, but a certainty that the bread there baked will be made with tainted water. So gross is the abuse, and so great the risk to the public health, that Mr. Asquith would be supported by opinion even if he suppressed, after one year's notice, all such bakeries now existing. They have no more business to exist than any other insanitary nuisance. On the other hand, in declaring that he would, if he could, prohibit overtime alto- gether, Mr. Asquith passed the point where grandmotherly legislation becomes tyranny. Overtime does not injure the community, and if it injures the workers, the injury is one which they have a right to incur. We do not doubt that at this moment Mr. Asquith constantly works overtime, and any adult workman has a right to do the same. It is for him, not the State, to determine whether he considers high wages or sleep and leisure most advantageous to himself. If he thinks himself coerced, he can strike, just as he does if he thinks himself underpaid.
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