Page:The Factory Controversy - Martineau (1855).djvu/43

 ought to take, had been adopted." One of the Inspectors, Sir John Kincaid, declared in his Report, last May, that the casing of horizontal shafts seven feet high "was neither required nor expected." Elsewhere, he and Mr. Horner eagerly declare that any notion of the kind was "a mistake;" and they rest upon their "hooks." In a Circular of last January, however, the hooks themselves are so spoken of as to justify the warning of the Committee to the mill-occupiers to enter into no compromise, by hooks or otherwise,—for, if they had, their case would have been worse than ever. This Circular of January, 1855, explains that hooks are a safeguard only against the danger of the strap; and it recurs to the ambiguous language of the law,—to the words now to be interpreted by the Court of Queen's Bench, "securely fenced,"—leaving it to the mill-owners to choose their own methods, under the warning that they must prevent "all accidents." The most sensible thing that has been said yet, on the side of the Inspectors, is in the last paragraph of Mr. Redgrave's Report {Inspectors Reports, April, 1855, p. 42):—"It has been recently determined that the question of the true construction to be placed upon the term 'securely fenced' shall be argued before the Court of Queen's Bench, upon an appeal against a conviction in Lancashire; and as such decision must have considerable influence upon the proceedings of the Inspectors, and must guide them in any communication they may have with the mill-owners of their districts, it is obviously impossible for the Inspector to issue a statement of what will be held to be the intention and scope of the law while that law is under discussion before the highest Court which can pronounce an opinion upon its meaning and application."

We have now arrived at the grand incident of the controversy,—at the event by which the dispute will be brought to a conclusion,—whatever that issue may be. We have seen that the circular of January, 1854, was withdrawn, and another substituted,—the second being so far from clear and effective as to