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MINUTES OF PEOCEEDINGS OF 
delayed by the change of Government, this delay has been productive 
of benefit, inasmuch as the present Grovernment has secured most im¬ 
portant aid in the preparation of the comprehensive bill which has 
recently been submitted to Parliament, from the labours of a Select 
Committee, appointed last session to enquire into the working of the 
existing laws and the directions which fresh legislation should take. 
The rapid development which has taken place in the manufacture 
and use of other valuable explosive agents has considerably increased 
the necessity for comprehensive measures regulating these important 
branches of industry. When the introduction of nitroglycerine into 
this country, a few years ago, was speedily followed by numerous de¬ 
plorable disasters, the protection of the public demanded the imposition 
for a time of severe restrictions in dealing with an explosive agent of 
most violent character, the nature of which was still very imperfectly 
understood. A measure was therefore made law in 1869, whereby the 
employment of nitroglycerine itself and of its preparations was placed 
entirely under the control of the Grovernment. Although this arrange¬ 
ment involved great labour on the part of the Government officials, and 
placed what now certainly appear to be unduly severe restrictions upon 
the manufacture and employment of dynamite, its necessity and bene¬ 
ficial operation as a temporary measure have been fully admitted by 
those chiefly interested in the progress of nitroglycerine preparations; 
and there is no question that it importantly promoted the wholesome 
development of the application of dynamite in Great Britain, where it 
has during the last three years secured a firm footing as a material 
indispensable to mining industry. The existing laws relating to nitro¬ 
glycerine preparations can now be modified with great advantage, and 
no important difficulty should be experienced in including in a general 
Act the measures necessary for developing and regulating, with proper 
security to the public, the production of this and other valuable sub¬ 
stitutes for gunpowder, in such a manner .as not to hamper the powder 
industry with undue restrictions. Other long-established branches of 
manufacture connected with explosive materials, which are quite as 
dangerous as many of new creation, but have enjoyed comparative 
immunity from restrictions, will also be brought under the operation of 
that systematic supervision which the security of the public demands. 
It is obvious that to attempt to deal in detail in one, or more than one 
Act of Parliament with the various modifications of regulations specially 
applying to gunpowder, which the peculiarities of other explosive agents, 
or of branches of manufacture involving risk of explosions, necessitate, 
would be to overburden the law with an unwieldy mass of measures 
which, however circumstantial in their nature, would certainly fail to 
embrace all conditions and contingencies likely to arise. Hence the 
wisdom (which has been so clearly demonstrated by the Nitroglycerine 
Act) of entrusting the Government with discretionary powers, under the 
operation of a comparatively simple but sufficiently comprehensive Act 
of Parliament, can scarcely admit of question. 
The beneficial results attainable by a systematic and thoroughly 
authoritative supervision, by Government inspectors, of factories and 
stores of explosive agents, if conducted with intelligence and discretion, 
