Page:The Factory Controversy - Martineau (1855).djvu/22

ones under seven feet in height; whereas he at the same time declared that rectangular hooks (of which more presently) are a security against one danger, "but not against other accidents;" while he stated in the same paragraph, that "adequate means must be adopted" "against all accidents from an horizontal shaft." Most people, we think, would understand by these instructions that Mr. Horner required the millowners to secure their horizontal shafts by permanent cases of wood or iron. If nothing else was safe in regard to shafts under seven feet high, and rectangular hooks were a security against one only out of various kinds of danger, at the same time that the owners were required to render "all accidents" impossible, the conclusion of the manufacturers, that they were required to enclose all their horizontal shafts in permanent casings, seems not only justifiable, but almost unavoidable. There seems to be no doubt that Lord Palmerston himself so understood the direction. He was waited upon in March, 1854, by a large deputation of millowners and master-manufacturers, who represented to him, that only shafts under seven feet high, and in particular circumstances of position, could need casing; that there was no objection made to casing these, which indeed was generally done; and that there were insuperable objections, which they fully explained, to casing shafts above that height—objections, not only on account of the expense and trouble (which, however, Lord Palmerston seemed entirely to appreciate), but on the ground of aggravated danger to the workers, and to the safety of the mill altogether. "The deputation," say the Inspectors, on Lord Palmerston's information, "expressed on their own part, and on the part of their constituents, a most anxious desire to protect the lives and limbs of their workpeople. Lord Palmerston," they continue, "is inclined to think, from the representations thus made to him, that the security required by the Factory Act might, in regard to horizontal shafts at a greater height from the floor than seven feet, be attained by various means; and his Lordship has