Nothing more came of the movement until January, 1901, when the Secretary of State for the Home Department appointed an interdepartmental committee "to inquire into the question of the employment of children during school age, and to report what alterations are desirable in the laws relating to child labour and school attendance and in the administration of these laws." After making careful investigation this committee declared: "In the case of street-trading children very strong powers of regulation are required. These children are exposed to the worst influences; they enter public houses to ply their trade, they are kept up late at night and exposed to inclement weather, and the precarious nature of their trade disinclines them to steady work, and encourages them to dissipate their earnings in gambling ... there should be power to prohibit street trading by children; to make regulations as to the age and sex of street traders, and the days and hours on which they may ply their trade; to grant licenses to those permitted to trade and to require the wearing of badges or uniforms; to forbid street traders to enter public houses or to importune or obstruct passengers; and generally to control their conduct and to cope with the evil in every reasonable way."[153] The committee further reported: "Our main recommendation is that the overworking of children in those occupations which are still unregulated by law should be prevented by giving to the county and borough councils a power to make labour by-laws; ... further we suggest that the gaps that may be left by local by-laws should be filled up by a general prohibition of night labour by children and of labour manifestly injurious to health."[154] This committee reported that the number of children in England and Wales attending school and also in paid employment was far greater than as reported by the parliamentary return, estimating that the total number was no less than 300,000 in 1898.[155]
One of the witnesses before this committee was a London truant officer of eighteen years' experience, who testified that every month he met with hundreds of cases of milk boys who "go to work at 5 A.M. and knock off at 8.30 and get to school at 9.45. At twelve they return to work, and after school at 4.30 they go again and wash up. The latest hour they work is about 8 P.M. I have frequently seen these children fast asleep in school. It is a common thing to see children of tender age outside the different theatres trying to sell newspapers at 11 o'clock at night. The percentage of cases in which this work is necessary is very small; it simply means that a little more money is spent in the public houses."[156] The report of this committee contains a great mass of testimony from persons in many walks of life, nearly all of whom declared that street trading by children is bad and should be regulated. They differentiated between the hawking of articles in the streets and their delivery for employers, and one of the witnesses from Liverpool testified that the local regulation of street trading by children in that city did not apply to bootblacks nor to boys who carried parcels because they were not selling anything.[157]
