Hundreds of small factories and workshops, prevented from normal operation in the areas occupied by Japanese forces, have been established in the parts of the Settlement remaining under full administrative control of the Municipal Council. AN the available property, frequently totally unsuitable for the purpose (both as regards site and construction) has been adapted for trade purposes and numerous new workshops Of a temporary nature have been erected. In many cases, the most elementary sanitary requirements have been ignored.
During the year, complaints regarding 56 industrial smoke nuisances of varying degrees of importance received the department's attention. The principal sources of the nuisance are utter ignorance of boiler attendants of their duties; negligence, faulty furnaces and boilers (very often easily improvable); use of wrong fuel; and existence of a conspiracy of boiler attendants on the one hand and coal dealers on the other, entered imo with the express purpose of benefitting each other.
In most cases our requirements designed to abate or minimize the nuisance have been carried out without any serious opposition. Due to the enormous increase in the population the number of cases of domestic smoke nuisances also increased considerably. Most of them have been dealt with by district inspectorial staff in the usual manner.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.