More Inspectors!

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17429, 13 April 1922, Page 6

More Inspectors!

Unkind or suspicious people may conceivably attribute the action of the Federation of Master Painters in urging upon the Minister of Health the necessity of appointing inspectors of hmuserpainting and paper-hanging, and of having the interior of every house in the Dominion inspected by them once a year, less to a regard for public health than to a desire for tlhe increased business which might result if their request were adopted. We do not, however, re-gai-d such an attitude as warranted. We prefer to believe that the deputation's arguments were put forward in perfectly good faith. We agree, indeed, with much that they said, especially as regards the insanitary nature of dirty old scrim and the undesirableneas of covering it up with successive layers -of wallpaper, a practice which an inspection of the room 3 in almost any old house would show to be far too common. Scrim may be worse when used in ceilings than when stretched on walls, but in either case its use is to be deprecated. But this must not be taken as approval of the master painters' proposal for the interior inspection of houses. On the contrary, we feel it our duty to protest most strongly against any idea of intensifying the condition of inspection to which our everyday life is subjected at iso many points. The average man submits to lhaving his backyard and sinks inspected, and the general sanitary arrangements of his house investigated, knowing that though his own surroundings are as they, should be, those of his neighbour may not be, and that it is to the personal interest of himself and his Family that tdie man next door should be kept in order". But that is a very (different matter from having, an inspector poking about inside his house, to see that there nr© no bugs lurking under his pictures, and that h© has no scrim ceilings or walls. Such an inquisition would be strongly resented, and with < some reason, as an unjustified invasion of domestic privacy. Inpection must stop somewhere, and if St is. to be carried into people's bedrooms, there ie no logical reason why it should not be extended to their persons, and why State or municipal officials should .not lay down regulations regarding the frequency, with which each individual took a bath, and eee that they were obeyed. If ecrini or the practice of covering it up is so unheolthful, let its -use be prohibited, and if it would add to the efficiency of painters and paper-hangers ilhat they should be registered and licensed as plumbers are,■ .tet, it be done by all means. But let us be spared any extension of the process of inspection, by which some people would have every detail of our lives regulated and controlled. The late*t' Health Act gives local authorities . ample power to inspect bouses where necessary, and the mere fact that .the master painters' proposal would not necessarily mean, additional expense to the Government is do valid reason why their request should he complied with. From the point of view of personal liberty, which seems sometimes to be in danger of being overlooked altogether, there is ©very reason against it.