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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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And at the third session, it can be voted on in its final form. This was the first session--this was the beating-it-out and hearing everybody's views and so forth.

Well, it was very interesting to me, because the matter of the regulation of the chemical industries is largely a matter of protecting the workers against fumes, dust, gases. It was a field that I'd worked in, you see, for years, and I knew the detail of it very well indeed. Of course there are constantly new chemicals coming into industrial life and operation, but you can easily find out what is the result of each of them.

Well anyhow, we worked very hard. It was a big committee. It had representatives of all major countries on it, and it was a committee in which there was great interest because the chemical industries were just spring up and starting in some countries. India, for instance, was just beginning with its chemical industries, and the man who represented the employers for India was one of the most enlightened and, I thought, progressive people, and very anxious that this code should be adopted rather early, so that the Indian industry could be started with plenty of precautions known. It's very expensive to change over an industry once it's started, you see, but you can do it very quickly, very properly, at the beginning.





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