In all the instances which I have met with of accidents occurring in coal-mines, as I have repeatedly stated, negligence forms an almost invariable element—negligence which is fairly assignable to one or other of the parties concerned in this branch of industry: either negligence on the part of the colliers, whether adults or children, in omitting those means of safety which are within their own control, or negligence on the part of the superintendent, or ultimately of the owners of the mines, in not providing the means, or duly regulating those means of safety, which are not within the discretion of any child or the control of the individual workman.

The children who are below the age of discretion are of course not to be deemed responsible for that which they have not to exercise; and unfortunately in the present state of education of the adult colliers, a large proportion of them are in the same category as children in respect to the want of discretion; and hence arises the first difficulty of any direct legislative interference for their protection.

Whatever detailed provisions might be laid down in any statute, or directed by any public officer acting under the authority of any statute, I can see no reason to believe that they would be adopted below ground by such a population.

For example; the safety-lamp is provided by most, and directed by all proprietors and underlookers to be used by the colliers; but, as we have seen, they habitually set aside the protection thus provided for them, though they do so under a penalty of maiming or death—and what more severe penalty could any statute impose or enforce with greater certainty? Education appears to me to be the slow and remote but complete preventive of those calamities arising from indiscretion. The efficiency of this remedy, the fact that ignorance and brutality are not essential to mining occupations, will, I apprehend, be shown by the comparative superiority of a better educated class of miners, namely, the Cornish miners and the lead miners of Lead Hills, Lanarkshire, who often, with less wages than the colliers of this district, attain a superior condition and are comparatively free from the like instances of indiscretion.

It will, however, be seen that there is a large class of accidents which comes within the control of responsible agents, and which would scarcely be within the control of the colliers, even if they had the discretion. For example, the sufficiency of the winding-ropes, guiders and side-rods, chairs, sliders, casing of the pit sides with brick and mortar, covers over the tubs to prevent coal falling on those ascending and descending in them, and the various other means of security in superior pit gearing, which, having been adopted in some mines with success, are demonstrably practicable, and no doubt ought to be used in all other similar cases.

But these practical measures appear to me from their number to be incapable of specification in any statute that could be discussed or tolerated in Parliament, if it should take upon itself the direction of mining operations, and they are apparently too numerous and important, to be intrusted to the discretion of any public officer. Positive regulations by statute or under legislative sanction would, I apprehend, impede changes in machinery and in operations which are commonly beneficial to the whole class of the workpeople. In whatsoever mode such preventive regulations were prescribed, the enforcement of them would, I apprehend, imply an inspection by a public officer; from the nature of the places I should doubt the efficiency of such inspection. I doubt whether inspectors could be found who would faithfully descend shafts two or three times the depth of the height of St. Paul’s, and amidst wet and damp and noxious gases crawl or allow themselves to be waggoned through miles of dark drains and subterranean caverns, with the chance of the roof falling on them or being burnt by explosion, to see that all was right, and not act on the easy assumption that it was so.

I believe, in the course of my own performance of the disagreeable duty assigned to me, I became tolerably familiar with such places; but I could not but perceive that I might easily have been deceived, and was always at the mercy of the colliers themselves for the completeness of my information.

No familiarity diminishes the disagreeable duty of proceeding through low, hot, and damp galleries, bent with the chest on the knees, under the oppression of clothes damp with moisture or perspiration, which the inspector must endure.

Proprietors themselves, whose direct interest it is to be aware of what is going forward under ground, are obliged to depend for inspection on their underlookers or foremen, who have been colliers.

In a large proportion of accidents, especially those where the witnesses are themselves destroyed, it would, I conceive, be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove against underlookers or proprietors the neglect of proper precaution. For example, in explosions of fire-damp the air-doors are frequently blown to pieces, the waggons dashed to atoms, the roof brought in by collapse from the exhaustion of the air in the mine, and, in short, the position of everything so completely deranged that it would be impossible to arrive at any correct conclusion as to the state of things previous to the accident.

A boy is thrown out of a tub in ascending the pit-shaft by the chairs coming in contact half way, the chairs may or may not be broken, the body is found dashed to pieces at the bottom; if it so happen that there are no marks either on the chairs or basket to show that they have been in contact, no one would be so bold as to swear that it was so. Numerous cases of this nature might be cited.

It may be a question whether extensive remedies are not practicable by the application of the principle of concentrating responsibility on those who have the best means of prevention, by such self-acting arrangements as shall give them a direct interest in prevention. Coal-owners and the underlookers of collieries assume that all the accidents which are not caused by the negligence of the workmen themselves are absolutely unavoidable, and in the present state of their interest and knowledge I believe them to be sincere in their assumption. As evidence of its truth, and in justification, they may adduce the frequent return of verdicts of simply “accidental death” upon inquests before the coroners. Conceding most fully that a large extent of accident is an unavoidable and essential concomitant of this branch of industry, the question then arises, Why should not this branch of industry bear the whole of its necessary and unavoidable consequences?

The more this question is examined, the more I apprehend will it be found desirable that the full expenses of such accidents should be borne by that branch of industry in which they are created; in which case they will be borne either by those who, as producers, have the chief profits, or they will fall, as I apprehend they ought to fall, on the consumers.

The satisfaction of the pecuniary losses attendant on personal injuries from accidents, heavy and long continued as those losses are, will be found to be a consideration of minor importance to the prevention of the accidents; and, above all, the prevention of the degraded mental condition of the reckless population amidst which such accidents occur. By imposing the pecuniary consequences, not as penalties for omissions, which at present are really not wilful, but as a trade charge or insurance payable by the branch of industry liable to the accidents, an interest will be created in their prevention on the part of those who alone have the means of efficiently preventing them. Instead of a penalty in the expense to which they might be put, they would thus have a perpetually acting bounty in the saving of every new improvement, and would be made the most efficient inspectors—having in every foreman and collier a superintendent in himself, gratis to the public.

It is a maxim of this district that manufacturers “only improve or adopt improvements upon threadbare profits.” Under the bounty created by the just and necessary charge upon the mines of the insurance against accidents and calamities, it can scarcely be doubted that the coal-owners would find out and adopt improvements in working of which they are themselves at present unaware. They would, moreover, have an interest in the removal by education of that dense ignorance, constituting that state of mind out of which the acts of “indiscretion” or heedlessness, and the other daily acts which disturb the community, emanate. Even with the present adult colliers, they would have an interest in exercising such a preventive control as would be exemplified by a case in another branch of industry which I have cited in the section on Accidents in my Report on the Calico Print-Grounds—I allude to the case of the men who were employed in kyanizing logs of wood on the Bolton and Preston Railway. It would, of course, follow from the adoption of the principle of charging the costs of accidents as an insurance or trade charge on the employment, or on those who had the best means of preventing them—viz. the coal-proprietors—that they should be enabled to distribute the principle of self-insurance and responsibility on their underlookers and workmen.

I avail myself of an illustration of the operation of the principle of preventive legislation which appears to me to be applicable to cases of the nature of those which are the subjects of this Report.

Formerly convicts were transported in private vessels engaged for the purpose at a charge of a certain amount per head on the number embarked. The ships belonged to respectable merchants and owners; and on that responsibility which is supposed to attach to fair character and respectability the convicts were committed to their charge.

The interest which engrossed the mind of the shipowner, it may be presumed, was that of making the most of his vessels, and sending out a full cargo. No wilful oversight, still less any oppression, was perhaps imputable to the owners, the captains, or any one else: but still the fair profits of a good cargo could scarcely be expected to be sacrificed for the avoidance of any temporary inconvenience of convicts during a voyage; but somehow or other it happened that fever broke out, and that the mortality during the first voyages was dreadful—sometimes half the passengers were lost. I presume that the convicts were accompanied by officers of the Government; but the importance of ventilation was little known at that time, and even the King’s ships were ravaged by scurvy, dysentery, and fever. The appointment of special inspectors for this purpose solely would possibly have mitigated the evil to some extent, perhaps to an extent to warrant the expense; but I believe it would have protracted amendment, and left untouched a large mass of evil.

At length, however, the form of contract was altered: instead of the shipowners being paid per head on the number embarked, they were only paid per head on the number landed alive; so that the shipowners lost by every person who died on the passage. This form of contract changed the whole face of things.

Attention, or the efficient stimulus of interest, was directed to the cause of the mortality: ventilation and other appliances were sedulously attended to; the merchant, at his own proper cost, provided a medical officer to take charge of the convicts, and the remuneration of that officer was proportioned to the number landed alive. The result was that the frightful mortality disappeared, and the voyages have generally been effected with a higher degree of health amongst the passengers, or with less mortality, than would perhaps have occurred amongst the same number of the same class of persons living at large on shore.^[64] The East India Company have also, I am informed, adopted the same principle in the payment of the medical officers who have charge of the transport of their troops. The same principle has been directed to be applied by the Poor Law Commissioners in the contracts for the shipment of pauper-emigrants for Canada; and I am informed that complaints and the cause of them have proportionably disappeared.

I am informed by a friend who has taken a great interest in the subject of the transport of emigrants, that a year or two ago the principle was overlooked in the transport of emigrants by the Government agent. Some vessels were chartered and officered by Government officers of the highest character; but fever broke out in those ships, and there was severe suffering; whilst the voyages of ordinary emigrant-ships, commanded by common skippers—people of no rank or consideration, but placed under a contract which made their interest coincident with humanity—made their voyages as any person of practical experience and observance of the operation of different interests might have expected.

I believe that the practical application of the same principle of legislation, viz. the concentration of responsibility on those who may best find out and apply the means of prevention, would, in this important branch of industry, in which such numbers of young persons, and persons young in understanding and discretion, are employed, would be the most efficient preventive, and would, at the same time, give the owners and managers of collieries, at the outset, the least trouble, and ultimately a high degree of comfort.

I may here repeat, that it is observable in the district assigned to me, that the accidents from the breakage of rope are of rare occurrence in the deepest mines. The cost of a rope for the deeper mines is proportionably greater than for those of less depth. Not only, therefore, is the breakage of a rope a serious loss in itself, but the cause of still more serious loss from the interruption of the very extensive operations of the large mines to which they belong. It is a matter of fact, that greater care is bestowed on these expensive ropes and gearing, because it is the interest of those who are not always thinking about preventing remote accidents, but who are naturally and properly always thinking about immediate profits, to take care of them.

The responsibility implied by the proposed application of the principle for prevention, is a responsibility for exercise of care in their own business operations, which care can be exercised by them and no others, without interrupting and interfering with them in their business operations.