ACCIDENTS IN MINES.

Kumara Times, Issue 1164, 22 June 1880, Page 3

ACCIDENTS IN MINES.

[AUSTRALASIAN.] The report of Major Couchman, chief inspector of mines of Victoria, on the result of the supervision carried on during 1879 under the statute for the Regulation of Mines has been laid before Parliament. The number of accidents was greater than in the previous year, but the watchfulness now exercised over operations in mines continues to have a beneficial effect. It is. however, remarked (hat notwithstanding the utmost vigilance on the part of mining inspectors, r.iiniug managers, and others who may have the control of mining operations, it has been found from time to time impossible to save men from the results of their own recklessness and want of cave; and while doubtless many of the accidents were due to circumstances over which the sufferers had no control, yet (oo many of them were the result of individual carelessness. Many accidents have occurred r - Undermining beyond the point of s;>fety ' iii old alluvial ground,,or the banks of croeJ?,3, or in shallow claims or other' places' vhich are almost entirely beyond the supervision of an inspector, and the majority are traceable to the unnecessary risk so fioquently and carelessly run, or for trivial reasons incurred, by individual miners in the pursuit of their calling.,' If miners were trained to observe and follo\y the plain and simple rules prepared for their guidance, and t<> exercise ordinary care for the avoidance of risk's in the various branches of

their occupation, there can be little doubt that liability to accidents would be so much reduced as to be scarcely noteworthy above those of many other callings in which mankind are engaged. During the past year the number of accidents has been 146, as compared with 121 in 1878 (the lowest number yet recorded), and 296 in 1874—the first year in which a statute for the regulation of mines came into operation. In the past year the proportionate number of persons killed of those employed in and about the mines has been 1 29, as compared with 1-93 per 1,000 in 1874, and the proportionate number injured has been 3*ol per 1,000 as compared with 6*26 per 1,000 in 1874; or, in other words, had the total number of miners employed in 1874 been the same as in the year 1879, the diminution of the number killed would have been 24, and of the number injured would have been 84, with a total diminution of the numbers i killed and injured iu corresponding proportion of 108.