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Manufacturers were invited to join, the subscription being the modest sum of ten shillings a boiler. A meeting was called in Leeds in 1890. It was very thinly attended, and not half-a-dozen subscriptions were raised. There have also been subsequent meetings held under the auspices of the Leeds Smoke Abatement Society, to discuss smoke-preventing appliances, and on such occasions manufacturers have been conspicuous by their absence. That is all that local patriotism has been able to do in Leeds. Mr. Fletcher, however, continued up to the time of his death to carry out the tests at considerable cost and trouble. These tests, along with those of other observers, are embodied in a report, which will shortly be published. They furnish, perhaps, the most complete and trustworthy record of practical smoke-preventing tests that have ever been compiled.[1] The report confirms the conclusions of all, who have carefully studied the subject of smoke prevention from boiler chimneys, and contains the following statement:—"A manufacturing district might be free from manufacturing smoke, at least from the steam boilers."
That is also the published opinion of the Sheffield and Glasgow Smoke Abatement Societies, after careful experimental enquiry, and of the sub-committees of the Blackburn and Rochdale Corporations, both of which passed a resolution to that effect, after visiting a number of smokeless works.
Mr. Gordon stated that the Local Authority could do more than the Local Government Board. I do not contest the statement; but that is not the present question. The question is, "Will it ever do more than it has done?" Whatever may be the cause, the present system has never been effective in Leeds, or for that matter in any other town, except perhaps Nottingham, because there it is in the interest of the lace industry to suppress the smoke, and smoke is practically abolished.
- ↑ Since this lecture was delivered, the Report of the Committee for Testing Smoke-Preventing Appliances (Guardian Printing Works, Manchester), has been published.
