Page:The Factory Controversy - Martineau (1855).djvu/23

 directed, that inasmuch as the circular of the 31st of January last has been construed to require the universal adoption of a permanent fixed casing, that circular should be for the present suspended, and need not be acted upon."—Report, October, 1854.

It appears that before Mr. Horner stimulated Lord Palmerston (as he avows he did) to command the issue of the circular, he consulted Mr. Fairbairn, the engineer, as to the practicability of fencing the higher range of horizontal shafting in mills. Mr. Fairbairn's reply, dated December 20th, 1853, appeared in the newspapers, and is now before us. The first sentence contains the pith of the whole. "I do not see how it is possible to fence off the horizontal shafts of mills driving machinery, without incurring greater evils, and probably more danger, than at present exists by their being left entirely open." So far the engineer. At the same time the agent of a Fire Insurance Company gave it as his opinion, that, if the government order were carried out, there ought to be "an increased rate of assurance upon mills which had these boxed-up channels of wood, choked with highly inflammable substances, so that they would act like trains of gunpowder; and if a fire arose, away went the mill without any possibility of salvation." In giving evidence on a trial a year later, Mr. Fairbairn said that "his attention had been directed to the question of fencing shafts, from the time the thing was first mooted; and his conclusion was, that the use of casing would be exceedingly inconvenient, and would greatly increase danger instead of lessening it. He alluded to horizontal shafts; for vertical shafts were now commonly fenced off. Horizontal shafts, less than seven feet from the floor, should be fenced or boxed; but when they were more than seven feet high, he was decidedly of opinion that they were safer when not boxed. There must always be danger caused from the necessity of suspending the fencing for shafts,—danger to those who had to put on the straps, and also from the possibility of the suspenders giving way. His decided conviction was that the best way of securely