Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY. MAY 25, 1899-The Wisdom of the Law.

Manawatu Herald, 25 May 1899, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY. MAY 25, 1899The Wisdom of the Law.

♦ ' ■ The rushing of Acts of Parliament late fit night has caused many of our Statutes to be anything but the embodiment of wisdom. In the Factories Act, 1894, we find that section 64 states " Subject to the right of appeal hereinafter contained, all proceedings in respect of penalties, orders, or otherwise under this Act shall be heard and determined by a Stipendiary Magistrate alone." An application of which we have had a recent example. Every manufacturer has now two Inspectors at his elbow, who jog him in contrary directions, lead him to' an unnecessary expense, and will end up in being the cause of loss of life. We have, however, learnt from the lips of a Stipendiary Magistrate sitting alone and dealing with an appeal from an absurd order of a Factory Inspector, that he can only be guided by the

words of the Act. The clause of the j Act relied on to order the introduction of loose pullies into flaxmills, was the clause that particularly stated the introduction of loose pullies was not to be a hard and fast direction, but only one to be adopted wherever possible, presumably, from the construction of the reading of the Act, to secure the 1 safety of the employees. All millowners are alike under the Inspection of Machinery Act under which there are Inspectors appointed whose duty is to see whether "such machinery and the appliances connected therewith or belonging thereto in order that it may be ascertained whether the provisions of this Act have been Complied with." .... "Whenever an Inspector shall be of opinion that any machinery subject to the provisions of this Act or that any driving-strap or band which he shall deem likely to cause bodily injury to any person engaged in the working thereof is not securely fenced, or otherwise sufficiently guarded he shall give notice to the owner." The first schedule of this Act mentions machinery for dressing flax. From the various duties set for the Inspector of Machinery to' see to and test it becomes patent to everyone that these men are thoroughly practical, and thus their opinion on the requirements at a flaxmill must be of much greater value than that of a Factory Inspector who relies on his reading of one clause unsupported by experience, yet he has his case heard by an incompetent tribunal. We are laying no blame on the Stipendiary Magistrate for his want of knowledge of machinery, but we say the Act is to blame for requiring technical questions of importance to be dealt with in this manner. The Inspection of Machinery Act has a far more sensible clause as to settlement of differences of opinion. Under it an owner can appeal for an arbitration of the dispute, and one such arbitrator shall be named by the owner, and the other by the Inspector, and the two choose a third arbitrator. By this arrangement it is possible to get men qualified to express an opinion, and thus the fiasco of last week would be avoided. The most important place given by the two Acts under consideration is, to our mind, given to the Inspection of Machinery Act. and we read the Factories Act to direct that the Inspector when he travels round to count the number of hands employed in a building, and measures the size of the rooms, he is to see whether the directions of the Inspector of Machinery are not ignored. If we are wrong we have presented to us the grotesque exhibition of a nonpractical Factory Inspector issuing orders over the heads and against the direction of thoroughly practical men, and the mill-owners left to the fruitless task of appealing on practical matters to an arbitrator who cannot hear explanations or argument as the letter of the law appears to have been unattended to. We trust that during the coming session some radical alteration will be made, so that mill-owners and Stipendiary Magistrates may become aware as to whose orders are to be carried out.