§ MR. H. CAMPBELL (Fermanagh, S.)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Is he aware that a girl named Elizabeth Sullivan was killed in the rope factory of Messrs. Frost and Co., Commercial Road, East, in the beginning of February of the present year; has information reached him that Messrs. Frost and Co. were warned on many occasions by their employés as to their liability to injury in consequence of the unprotected and dangerous state of the machinery, and that the space between the machines is so narrow that girls working in this factory have to tie themselves in sacking to prevent their clothes from catching; and, whether this factory has been duly inspected in the manner provided in the Employers' Liability Acts?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.)The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative, and to the second paragraph in the negative. The Factory Inspector drew the particular attention of Messrs. Frost to the danger to be apprehended; and at his instigation they consented to adopt a plan for fencing the machinery which would obviate the danger, and which the hon. Member will find described in the last Report of the Factory Inspector. Unfortunately, only part of the machines had been fitted in the way suggested when the fatal accident occurred. The factory has been regularly inspected under the Factory Act. I may add that the makers of the machines have agreed, at the request of the Factory Inspector, to consider whether they cannot fit all similar machines in future with the proposed fencing.