FACTORIES BILL. (Hansard, 22 May 1856)

§ MR. COBBETT
said, he rose to move that the Committee be deferred for six months, for his objections to the amended Bill were quite as strong as they had been to the original measure. One part of the Bill proposed to extend protection only to young persons and children, whereas the present law applied equally to male and female adults. He also objected to the fourth clause, which provided that matters relating to the fencing of machinery should be referred to arbitration, not only in cases where the inspectors had certified danger, but even when danger had been proved to exist by the occurrence of fatal accidents. He was decidedly of opinion that such a case, wherein no doubt existed as to the danger of unfenced machinery, was not a matter for arbitration. By the existing law, a factory inspector went into a mill, and on discovering anything dangerous he gave notice of it to the millowner, who then had the right of claiming to refer the question to arbitration, whether the matter complained of was dangerous or not; but the law was so defective, that if the award were made that the works were dangerous, there was no mode of carrying that award into effect. By the proposed Bill it was made imperative on the factory owner, on receiving notice from the inspector, to have an arbitration. Now, what he contended was, that the law would be wholly inoperative, because the factories were so situated as to make it impossible to carry the law into effect. Many factories were situated in those parts of the kingdom where no persons skilled in machinery resided. Supposing two arbitrators and an umpire were appointed, were they to go to the Isle of I Skye or to Cornwall, and there demand 557 their ten guineas a day, besides expenses? He, therefore, maintained that the whole Bill would be utterly unworkable. Many hon. Members had expostulated with him for opposing the Bill; but he considered that it was a duty to his constituents, and particularly to the working part of them, to see that they were not damnified in any way by such a measure. He could never forget a woman who, at the time of his first election for Oldham, forced her way through the crowd, with a child in her arms, and said to him, "We are factory folk; this child is to go to the factory, and thou must not desert us." He would not desert that woman, and it was for her sake, and for those who belonged to her, that he now moved that the Bill be committed that day six months.

§ COLONEL WILSON PATTEN
said it was only forty-eight hours ago that the hon. and learned Member for Oldham had given notice of his intention to move certain Amendments in the Bill, and it was not till that morning that the hon. Gentleman considered the better course to be to withdraw his Amendments and take his chance of defeating the Bill by objecting to go into Committee. After the time he had occupied the attention of the House on the second reading of the Bill, he was unwilling to trespass again on their patience, especially as the arguments of the hon. and learned Gentleman were not quite satisfactory. The object of the Bill was a very simple one. For several years past the manufacturers of the country had been subject to a law which caused them the greatest annoyance. The operation of the law was, in fact, not satisfactory to anybody. By a recent decision of Lord Campbell, in the Court of Queen's Bench, it was necessary that every portion of the machinery should be fenced off; but this was found to be wholly impracticable. He did not believe there was a single factory in the kingdom where the law either was, or could be, obeyed. His object, therefore, was to enact a law which could be obeyed. At present the enforcement of the law was left to a certain number of factory inspectors, but their decisions were so various and conflicting that no manufacturer knew whether he had obeyed the 558 law, or whether he was subject to a prosecution for not having obeyed it. It was cruelty on a respectable body of men to keep them in that position. He therefore hoped the House would not refuse going into Committee on the Bill.

MR. BECKETT DENISON
said, he must ask the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Cobbett) to allow the Bill to go into Committee. It was a mere waste of time to divide the House on his Amendment.

COLONEL DUNNE
said, the observations of the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel W. Patten) might be perfectly correct, but he (Colonel Dunne) believed that it was not the real object which the promoters of the Bill had in view. The manufacturers desired to do away with all factory legislation. Upwards of fifty magistrates in the north, including twenty-six Members of that House, had petitioned to that effect. The interests of a large class of persons unrepresented in that House were involved in the question whether the Bill would deprive the factory workmen of their rightful protection. Why, there had been flagrant cruelties perpetrated in factories, and yet even the present law could not be enforced before benches of magistrates in the north. The proposed measure was one step in the removal of factory legislation, and should be resisted by all who desired to protect the workpeople. He should cordially support the opposition to the measure, which he considered most cruel, mischievous, and unjust.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, he would not repeat the remarks which he had made on a former occasion; but he must remind the House that of his suggestions the hon. and gallant Gentleman had adopted some, and printed them in the Bill; he would, under those circumstances, support the Motion for going into Committee.

§ MR. MUNTZ
said, if the question of bands only had been left to arbitration, he believed the Bill would have been satisfactory. [Colonel PATTEN: Bands are left to arbitration.] But it was bands, and something else; and, if he were a millowner, he should object himself to this sort of legislation. He would have the law remain as it stood, except as to bands. Another objectionable point in the Bill was, that the fourth clause was made to refer only to "children and young persons," whereas the persons most liable to accidents by machinery were women, whose clothes were more likely to be caught as they passed along.

§ MR. COBBETT
said, he would move, as an Amendment, that the words "children" and "young" be omitted, and the word "any" be substituted for them. It was the intention of the Factory Commissioners of 1833, and of the Select Committee of 1836, that adults as well as children should be protected from injury by machinery; and the decision of the Court of Exchequer, in the case of Coe v. Plait, where the question came before it on demurrer, was to the effect that, under the twenty-first clause of the Factory Act, the protection from injury was extended to all operatives. It was his wish that that protection should be continued to them, whereas the clause, as it at present stood, would deprive them of it, and confine it to children and young persons.

§ COLONEL WILSON PATTEN
said, he would not presume to argue a question of law with the hon. and learned Member, but he was sure he (Colonel Patten) was right. The clause in the Factory Act related to "children and young persons," and those words had been incorporated in the present Bill and nothing more; so that whatever was subject to arbitration under the Factory Act, would be subject to arbitration under the Bill now before the Committee. The hon. and learned Member was trying to steal a lawyer's march upon the Committee without any grounds for it.

MR. MONTAGU CHAMBEES
said, that he had also read the clause proposed to be inserted in the Bill, and he considered that it had been made to exclude the very words in the Factory Act, upon which the Court of Exchequer had solemnly decided in the case that had been referred to, that "all parts of the mill-gearing in the factory shall be securely fenced." The manufacturers argued that that clause must be read throughout as applying to children and young persons only, but the Court said, "No; the Act says all parts of the mill-gearing, no matter whether it affected 560 young children or not." The object of the fencing was to provide protection to the persons exposed to injury, and in that sense the workmen were just as helpless as children. But if the Committee looked at the Bill, they would find that grown-up persons were deprived of the protection they had under the old Factory Act. The very thing the Court of Exchequer had decided would now be entirely set aside.

§ MR. MILNER GIBSON
said, the simple object proposed by the Bill of his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel W. Patten) was to amend a clause in the Factory Act of 1844, which was found to be incapable of universal application. The legal disquisitions that had been given in the course of the discussions on the measure had confused a question that was otherwise perfectly simple. Acts of Parliament, notwithstanding the wisdom of both Houses, could not sometimes be carried into literal effect. That the clause in question could not be carried out was beyond doubt. Mr. Horner, one of the Factory Inspectors, had pronounced that you could not securely fence all mill-gearing, and the Judges had differed from each other as to what was meant by secure fencing. Under those circumstances, his hon. and gallant Friend, in his first Bill, proposed to apply to mill-gearing the same rule as was applied to machinery—namely, that when a question arose as to its being securely fenced, it should be referred to arbitration. Surely, if arbitration was good to protect the operatives from injury from machinery, it was equally efficacious to protect them as regarded mill-gearing. His hon. and gallant Friend then provided, that when an arbitration had taken place, and it was decided that particular mill-gearing should be fenced or boxed off, that arbitration should be compulsory. You had, therefore, in this Bill all that you had in the Bill of 1844, only it was put in a practicable and working form—in a form which had gained for it the support of the great body of the mill-owners and manufacturing population. He regarded the measure of his hon. and gallant Friend as a good one; its object was to carry out the original intentions of the Legislature; and he must deny that the object of those who promoted the Bill was in the smallest degree to lessen the protection which the operative now enjoyed. In the first Bill his hon. and gallant Friend proposed that arbitration should apply to all cases of mill-gearing as it now applied to machi- 561 nery, and that seemed to him a most reasonable proposition; but in the clause now under consideration, his hon. and gallant Friend provided that in all cases where children and young persons were likely to come in contact with mill-gearing, there secure fencing should be imperative, and arbitration should not be resorted to. He did hope that as the Bill was limited to one single point of this kind, and was brought in with a view to prevent litigation, they would not be drawn into a discussion of the whole principle of factory legislation. So far from it being the object of mill-owners in supporting this measure, to upset factory legislation, they desired that that legislation should be carried out in a perfectly bonâ fide spirit, and in the sense in which Parliament had intended.

§ LORD LOVAINE
said, he did not see the object of retaining the words "children and young persons." The commonsense view of the matter was, that if machinery was to be fenced, it ought to be fenced for the benefit of all.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, he quite agreed with his noble Friend that if danger were likely to arise from mill-gearing, protection ought to be accorded to adult persons as well as to young children, and that would be the effect of the law if the Bill passed in its present shape. The forty-third clause, in point of fact, provided—excluding that part of the mill-gearing which stood at a great height from the floor—that all mill-gearing within a certain distance from the floor, and near to which adult persons as well as young children came in the course of their ordinary avocations, must absolutely be fenced. The Bill would afford the fullest protection to adults as well as to young persons and children, if a reference to arbitration should prove that danger existed. The existing law had not been literally enforced, simply because it was impossible to do so. A decision of a Court of Law rendering it compulsory under the Act upon mill-owners to fence all machinery, had rendered necessary the present measure, or some similar one. The Amendment proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Oldham would defeat the very principle of the Bill, for if all mill-gearing were required to be fenced with which any person might come in contact, that enactment would apply to drums and pulleys, which it would be impossible to case without stopping the entire work of the mill.

§ MR. HARDY
said, he thought the right hon. Gentleman had discussed the principle of the Bill rather than the Amendment which had been proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Oldham, and had not met the case which had been put, that in certain places there were no young persons or children employed—only adults—therefore in such cases the whole mill-gearing would be left open to arbitration. He would suggest an alteration in the clause, making it obligatory that only those parts of the machines should be fenced which were less than seven feet from the floor.

LORD STANLEY
said, he thought the Amendment would destroy the Bill. If it was enacted that all parts of mill-gearing with which any person might in the course of his occupation come in contact should be fenced, that would include all mill-gearing. It was said that no distinction should be made between the protection afforded to children and that given to adults; but he could not agree with that doctrine. He thought that from a skilled adult they had a right to expect a degree of caution that might not be looked for from a child. To others, protection would be given in any case where danger was proved to exist.

§ MR. BROTHERTON
said, he regarded the present Bill as a just measure, affording proper protection to those employed in mills, without making impossible demands upon the mill-owners.

COLONEL DUNNE
said, he wanted to know how the Bill would remove any impossibility? Why was it more impossible to fence machines, which an inspector certified to be dangerous, than to do so upon the award of an arbitrator.

§ MR. BARROW
said, he was anxious that the Committee should decide in favour of the clause without the Amendment proposed, which would, in his opinion, entirely nullify the object in view.

§ MR. G. BUTT
said, he also thought that the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman would entirely defeat the object of the Bill. That object was to give protection to all persons employed, but as to children, to make it absolute that all mill-gearing near which they had occasion to pass should be securely fenced, nothing, in his opinion, could be more reasonable than the mode in which this object was carried out—nothing was more likely to give protection to the operatives, and to do right as between them and their employers.

§ MR. HARDY
said, he would now propose that after the words "young persons" the words "and women" should be inserted Women were always employed in factories where the children were; and he thought they ought to be as efficiently protected from accident.

§ COLONEL WILSON PATTEN
said, he though the Amendment was superfluous, inasmuch as the women were never employed where the children were not, and therefore they would necessarily meet with the same protection.

§ MR. COBBETT
said, he should support the Amendment, as he knew of factories where women were employed separately from the children.

§ MR. CHEETHAM
said, he must inform the Committee that the number of factories in which women were employed in rooms separate from the children were very few.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, he was not convinced of the fact stated by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Cobbett), because "young persons" included women under the age of eighteen years; and he presumed many under that age would appear to be adults. If, however, there were any factories in which only women above eighteen were employed, they were entitled to protection, and he should advise his hon. and gallant Friend to assent to the Amendment.

§ COLONEL WILSON PATTEN
said, he would agree to the insertion of the words.

§ MR. COBBETT
said, he would now move to leave out the words "their ordinary occupation," and insert "in the course of their duty," because, when accidents occurred, the young persons injured were frequently doing something by the order of their superiors, not in their ordinary occupation, but in the course of their duty.

§ COLONEL WILSON PATTEN
said, if those words were introduced they would lead to endless confusion, and he should therefore oppose the Amendment.

§ MR. HARDY
said, he wished to move that a proviso be added to the clause, enacting that no mill-gearing should be fenced to a less height than seven feet from the floor.

§ MR. G. BUTT
said, the object of the 564 clause was to secure a safe fence, but to say that the fence should not in any case be less than seven feet, was to make a provision that in many cases would be quite unnecessary. He should therefore oppose the Amendment.

§ MR. COBBETT
said, he would now beg to move the insertion of a clause which was suggested by Mr. Marshall, one of the greatest manufacturers in the kingdom, in 1841, having for its object to prevent accidents arising from the use of straps upon revolving wheels.

§ COLONEL WILSON PATTEN
said, that by the present law these straps were made the subject of arbitration. He must oppose the clause, because it went in opposition to the principle of the Bill. It was making that compulsory which, at the present moment, was the subject of arbitration.

§ MR. KIRK
said, he objected to the proposed clause, because he thought it afforded inadequate protection, compared with that given by arbitration. The strap-hooks were liable to break if not made of the very best material; in which case they would do more injury than if the machinery were not fenced at all.

§ MR. HARDY
said, he hoped that the Committee would pass the clause, which had been recommended by Mr. James Marshall, of Leeds, one of the largest manufacturers in the country. Great numbers of accidents had arisen from revolving shafts above seven feet from the floor, and many of these caused immediate death and frightful mutilation. The clause would render arbitration unnecessary. He would admit that almost all the accidents which took place in mills arose from the carelessness of the workpeople; but still the Committee ought to endeavour to prevent all the accidents possible. He would defy any manufacturer to say that in any single instance an accident had happened where a rectangular hook was used, so long as it remained in an uninjured state. He believed that three-fourths of the mill-owners were adopting that precaution, and that the factory inspectors were favourable to the present clause. The feeling against the clause really arose from the dislike of the system of inspection and espionage. The clause was, however, necessary for the protection of the workpeople, and he considered that the Committee would consult the interests of the operatives in passing it.

§ MR. KIRK
said, he wished to explain that he found that, had not the hooks employed in his mill been made of peculiarly good iron, they would have been liable to break and to fall upon the heads of the workpeople.

LORD STANLEY
said, that the proviso in his opinion involved the whole principle of the Bill, which had been already discussed and decided upon, on the second reading, and also on the Motion for going into Committee. He, of course, had no wish to make the law, as far as the protection of operatives was concerned, less efficient than it was; but he apprehended that the plain principle upon which they were to act was to leave the matter in question to the arbitration of competent authorities, upon whose decisions the point would without doubt be satisfactorily settled. The Committee could not properly legislate upon this subject. They ought to leave the obligation of providing a remedy in general terms, as the apprehended danger involved a matter of detail with which, he apprehended, it was not competent for them to deal.

§ MR. MILNER GIBSON
said, he hoped the Committee would act upon the advice of the noble Lord, and not take upon themselves to legislate as to the best mode by which complex machinery should be secured. He considered that the question was one for arbitration.

§ MR. CROSSLEY
said, it was ridiculous to lay down a law as to how manufacturers were to carry out this system of fencing machinery. If there was any case in which arbitration was necessary, this was the very case.

§ MR. MUNTZ
said, that the point under consideration had nothing to do with fencing, but merely involved the necessity of a strap-hook. Many Members of that House, like the right hon. Member for Manchester, had expressed opinions upon a question which, he believed, they knew nothing whatever about. He thought that the protection required was applicable to all cases except to those of perpendicular shafts. Under such circumstances, he could not see any objection to the proviso proposed.

§ SIR CHARLES WOOD
said, he objected to a particular remedy being prescribed by that House which might not meet all cases. He had himself seen several cases in which the strap-hook would not have afforded any protection; and it appeared to him absurd, therefore, 566 to lay down the rule that in all cases strap-hooks should be employed.

§ SIR JAMES GRAHAM
said, he thought that the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) in supporting the clause had advanced the strongest reason why the Committee should not assent to it. The hon. Gentleman thought that no Member of that House but one knew anything about the matter, and therefore it was no use discussing it. That might be true, but surely if non-acquaintance with the subject was a reason for not talking about it, it was a much stronger reason for not making an enactment with regard to it.

§ MR. CHEETHAM
said, he should oppose the clause, because he thought that it would increase the danger instead of obviating it.