§ MR. ROLLSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the recent death of Stephen Hutton through a fall of stone from the roof of the Rose Heyworth Pit Cwmtillery, and to the verdict of the jury at the inquest thereon, If the use of locked lamps ought to have been enforced by the Government Inspector in this colliery, against the wish of the workmen in the colliery and their employers, and the finding of the jury?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT,in reply, said, the question of using locked lamps in mines was one of very great importance with regard to the preservation of life in mines; and the Mine Inspectors, with his full support, had endeavoured to enforce their use. In 39 reporting this accident to the Home Department the Inspector stated that—
At my instigation, they adopted locked lamps at this pit, and during five years there was no explosion; but since 1881, when they took to open lamps, there had been several small explosions, burning one or two men.The Inspector was also of opinion that unless locked lamps were resumed a terrible explosion would occur, sooner or later. He (Sir William Harcourt) could not, therefore, relax in any way the instructions on this point. As the Inspector further remarked—Miners become so inured to the danger of their calling that they cannot see the necessity for measures of precaution until it is too late.