§ MR. BURT (Morpeth)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If it is true that the Woodend, or Bedford, Colliery, in which an explosion occurred, whereby thirty-eight lives were lost, was worked with the Davy lamp; whether he is aware that the Davy lamp not only gives a very imperfect light, but has been proved by the experiments of the Royal Commission on Accident in Mines to be utterly unsafe when the ventilating current exceeds six feet per second; whether his attention has been called to a communication sent to the Home Secretary in 1880 by the Chairman of the Royal Commission on Accidents in Mines, in which the following statement was made:—
The employment of the ordinary Davy lamp, without a shield of metal or glass, in an 259 explosive mixture, when the current exceeds six feet a second, is attended with risk of accident, almost amounting to certainty. The Clanny lamp, when tested in a similar current, has proved to be scarcely, if at all, less dangerous;and, whether he can take steps to call the attention of colliery owners to the necessity of providing real safety lamps for the use of their workmen?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.), in reply, said, that it appeared from the reports of the inquest that the Woodend Colliery was worked generally with the Davy lamp. He was quite aware of the conclusions that had been arrived at by the Royal Commission on Accidents in Mines with regard to the use of Davy lamps, and also of the Correspondence between the Home Secretary in 1880 and the Chairman of that Commission. The hon. Member for Morpeth might, perhaps, be aware that in a Bill which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Childers) introduced last Session for the regulation of coal mines, special and elaborate provisions were made as to the construction of safety lamps used in mines. These or similar provisions he himself also hoped to re-introduce in a Bill which would be brought in at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, the hon. Member would perhaps feel that it would be inexpedient for the Home Office to prescribe the use of any particular lamps of any particular manufacturer, because Parliament might not approve the recommendation, and the expense incurred by colliery owners would be thrown away. The only thing he had power to do, and what he would do in the meantime, was to issue a Circular to colliery owners, drawing their attention to the conditions laid down by the Commission on Mines, with regard to the paramount importance of safety lamps, and also to those portions of the Report which dealt with the relative advantages and disadvantages of the different lamps now in use. Further, he meant to issue instructions to the Inspectors of Mines to insist upon the discontinuance of the lamps now in use in cases where the condition of the workings were such as to render the use of these lamps dangerous. He might add that work at the Woodend Colliery had been resumed with the sanction of the Inspector, and that the Marshall lamp was in use. The present decision of the 260 Home Office was that it was not necessary to attend the inquest by counsel, seeing that the Inspector and his deputy were both present, and were fully competent to elicit all the facts which, in their view, were material.