220 Steam Boiler Legislation. [April, 



the boiler minder, that they do not exceed 15 per cent of 

 the whole number, — or, in round numbers, one in seven, so 

 that, as stated above, where the stoker or boiler minder has 

 to answer for one explosion, the boiler master and boiler maker 

 have to answer for six. It is important that this should be 

 kept in view, as the attempt is constantly made to attribute 

 the majority of explosions to the fault of the boiler minder, 

 and thus to show that, after all, inspection is unable to 

 grapple with steam boiler explosions. A review, however, 

 of the facts of the case shows how ill founded these assertions 

 are. 



To this it should be added, in justice to the poor boiler 

 minder, so often abused, that it is by no means clear that 

 he should be made accountable for the whole of the 15 per 

 cent of the explosions referred to above, and they were only 

 tacitly admitted in the course of argument that it might be 

 apparent that the case in his favour was not over-stated but 

 under-stated. In many of the cases of explosions from 

 shortness of water, the boilers have been lamentably de- 

 ficient of suitable mountings, a condition for which the 

 engineer and employer are exclusively responsible. 



Proposition No. 3. 



That notwithstanding the proved efficiency of competent 

 boiler inspection, and the publicity constantly given to the 

 subject, yet that steam users refuse to protect the lives of 

 their workpeople, or those residing near to their works, by 

 having their boilers inspected. That it appears approximately 

 that out of more than 100,000 boilers in the country, only 20,000 

 are enrolled either with inspecting associations or insurance 

 companies, so that out of every five boilers one only is en- 

 rolled. That a great number of boiler owners are totally 

 ignorant of the risk to which they expose their own lives 

 and those around them, and in many cases are only un- 

 deceived by the shock of explosion. That, judging from 

 experience, there can be no doubt that there are now a number 

 of dangerous boilers on the very verge of explosion being 

 worked on at the risk of all those living near them. That 

 under these circumstances the public safety demands that 

 competent periodical inspection should be enforced by law, 

 and that it should be rendered as illegal for the lives of the 

 public to be jeopardised by dangerous boilers as by the 

 storage of gunpowder, petroleum, or other explosive 

 materials. 



The committee have most reluctantly arrived at the con- 

 clusion that it is necessary to enforce inspection by law, 



