136 Offensive Manufactures. [March, 
would be carried on so far only as was consistent with 
economical working. In the case of the escape of gases 
the same rule would be observed. If a farmer complained 
of damage to his crops he would then be told that if, of his 
own free will and choice, he preferred to occupy land in a 
B district, he must accept the inevitable conditions. In the 
same way, if a manufacturer thought proper to conduct his 
operations in an A district, and complained that the condi- 
tions required were ruinous, he would be told that by 
removing into a B district he would meet with every facility. 
In all this I can see no injustice, since both farmer and 
manufacturer would be freed from much annoyance to which 
they are each respectively liable under our existing promis- 
cuous arrangements. 
The two kinds of districts could be marked out without 
much difficulty. Those lands which lie over, among, or near 
the coal-deposits, or along the tideway of our navigable 
rivers and along the shore at their mouth, would fall under 
schedule B. We might include here all Lancashire except 
the Furness beyond Sands, the eastern half of Northumber- 
land and Durham, the north-eastern margin of Cumberland 
reaching from Whitehaven to Silloth, the Yorkshire coal- 
fields, eastern Derbyshire, the whole probably of Stafford- 
shire and Shropshire, the greater part of Warwickshire, and 
a portion of Worcestershire. In Nottinghamshire and 
Leicestershire the demarcation might possibly be not free 
from difficulties. In the London district ample margin 
might be secured for manufactures within a region begin- 
ning about Bow and extending eastwards between the 
Thames and the Chelmsford branch of the Great Eastern 
Railway, in addition to a much narrower strip of land on 
the south side of the Thames and about the mouth of the 
Medway. The coal-distriCts of Somerset, of South Wales, 
and of Flint would complete the B schedule of South 
Britain. Everyone must confess that within these limits 
three or four times the amount of manufacturing activity 
which we now exert could find ample room. The London 
district, to the north, the west, and the south, would be en- 
tirely free from noisome manufactures, whether chemical or 
mechanical. The southern counties, with the exception of 
the slip of North Kent just mentioned, would be entirely 
placed in schedule A. So also would the West, with the 
exception of the Somerset coal-distriCt and the Cornish 
mining region. Norfolk, Suffolk (save about the mouth of 
the Orwell), the greater part of Essex, Cambridgeshire, the 
greater part of Lincoln, the north-west of Yorkshire, the 
