§ MR. TENNANT (Berwickshire)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the fatal accident at Messrs. R. & R. Allen's Steam Saw Mills, Wexford, by which a boy named John Cullen was killed, and to the fact that the occupier, Mr. Moody, was prosecuted by Mr. Bellhouse, His Majesty's inspector of factories, for failure to fence part of the machinery; and, seeing that the Bench dismissed the summons, will he say whether he has received any official report showing the reason for the dismissal of this case; and will he state whether he proposes to take any action in this case.
§ *MR. RITCHIEI have received a report on this case, and find that the Bench refused to say more as to the grounds on which they dismissed the case than that their decision was based on a point of fact and not on a point of law. It would appear from this that they consider that such protection of the machinery as the evidence showed that there was constituted a sufficient fencing. In these circumstances no appeal lies, and there is no action which I can take on the case; but I may say that the inspector reports further that the fencing has, since the accident, been carried out in a proper manner.