It is a maxim of this district that manufacturers “only improve or adopt improvements upon threadbare profits.” Under the bounty created by the just and necessary charge upon the mines of the insurance against accidents and calamities, it can scarcely be doubted that the coal-owners would find out and adopt improvements in working of which they are themselves at present unaware. They would, moreover, have an interest in the removal by education of that dense ignorance, constituting that state of mind out of which the acts of “indiscretion” or heedlessness, and the other daily acts which disturb the community, emanate. Even with the present adult colliers, they would have an interest in exercising such a preventive control as would be exemplified by a case in another branch of industry which I have cited in the section on Accidents in my Report on the Calico Print-Grounds—I allude to the case of the men who were employed in kyanizing logs of wood on the Bolton and Preston Railway. It would, of course, follow from the adoption of the principle of charging the costs of accidents as an insurance or trade charge on the employment, or on those who had the best means of preventing them—viz. the coal-proprietors—that they should be enabled to distribute the principle of self-insurance and responsibility on their underlookers and workmen.
I avail myself of an illustration of the operation of the principle of preventive legislation which appears to me to be applicable to cases of the nature of those which are the subjects of this Report.
Formerly convicts were transported in private vessels engaged for the purpose at a charge of a certain amount per head on the number embarked. The ships belonged to respectable merchants and owners; and on that responsibility which is supposed to attach to fair character and respectability the convicts were committed to their charge.
The interest which engrossed the mind of the shipowner, it may be presumed, was that of making the most of his vessels, and sending out a full cargo. No wilful oversight, still less any oppression, was perhaps imputable to the owners, the captains, or any one else: but still the fair profits of a good cargo could scarcely be expected to be sacrificed for the avoidance of any temporary inconvenience of convicts during a voyage; but somehow or other it happened that fever broke out, and that the mortality during the first voyages was dreadful—sometimes half the passengers were lost. I presume that the convicts were accompanied by officers of the Government; but the importance of ventilation was little known at that time, and even the King’s ships were ravaged by scurvy, dysentery, and fever. The appointment of special inspectors for this purpose solely would possibly have mitigated the evil to some extent, perhaps to an extent to warrant the expense; but I believe it would have protracted amendment, and left untouched a large mass of evil.
At length, however, the form of contract was altered: instead of the shipowners being paid per head on the number embarked, they were only paid per head on the number landed alive; so that the shipowners lost by every person who died on the passage. This form of contract changed the whole face of things.
Attention, or the efficient stimulus of interest, was directed to the cause of the mortality: ventilation and other appliances were sedulously attended to; the merchant, at his own proper cost, provided a medical officer to take charge of the convicts, and the remuneration of that officer was proportioned to the number landed alive. The result was that the frightful mortality disappeared, and the voyages have generally been effected with a higher degree of health amongst the passengers, or with less mortality, than would perhaps have occurred amongst the same number of the same class of persons living at large on shore.[[64]] The East India Company have also, I am informed, adopted the same principle in the payment of the medical officers who have charge of the transport of their troops. The same principle has been directed to be applied by the Poor Law Commissioners in the contracts for the shipment of pauper-emigrants for Canada; and I am informed that complaints and the cause of them have proportionably disappeared.
I am informed by a friend who has taken a great interest in the subject of the transport of emigrants, that a year or two ago the principle was overlooked in the transport of emigrants by the Government agent. Some vessels were chartered and officered by Government officers of the highest character; but fever broke out in those ships, and there was severe suffering; whilst the voyages of ordinary emigrant-ships, commanded by common skippers—people of no rank or consideration, but placed under a contract which made their interest coincident with humanity—made their voyages as any person of practical experience and observance of the operation of different interests might have expected.
I believe that the practical application of the same principle of legislation, viz. the concentration of responsibility on those who may best find out and apply the means of prevention, would, in this important branch of industry, in which such numbers of young persons, and persons young in understanding and discretion, are employed, would be the most efficient preventive, and would, at the same time, give the owners and managers of collieries, at the outset, the least trouble, and ultimately a high degree of comfort.
I may here repeat, that it is observable in the district assigned to me, that the accidents from the breakage of rope are of rare occurrence in the deepest mines. The cost of a rope for the deeper mines is proportionably greater than for those of less depth. Not only, therefore, is the breakage of a rope a serious loss in itself, but the cause of still more serious loss from the interruption of the very extensive operations of the large mines to which they belong. It is a matter of fact, that greater care is bestowed on these expensive ropes and gearing, because it is the interest of those who are not always thinking about preventing remote accidents, but who are naturally and properly always thinking about immediate profits, to take care of them.
The responsibility implied by the proposed application of the principle for prevention, is a responsibility for exercise of care in their own business operations, which care can be exercised by them and no others, without interrupting and interfering with them in their business operations.