The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-19 00:00:00

otIMI nit

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1844.

The Tory party—at least, if we may judge fron,
their organs—appear to be dreadfully alarmed at the
idea of a compact between Mr. O'CONNELL and the
Whigs. Knowing well that Ireland is their " great
difficulty "—a fact of which their leader took care to
apprise them a few years since—they are naturally
enough apprehensive that it would become a down-
right impossibility, were any such compact to be in-
stituted—that is to say, it would become morally im-
possible for them to continue to legislate for the
sister country, unless they consented to abandon
every single principle which they have maintained
for the last half century and upwards. But this of
course the Tories cannot be expected to do, for though
by no means squeamish as regards political tergiver-
sation, yet, even apostacy has its limits, which no
party can pass without encountering such a
burst of popular execration as would for ever put an
end to its moral influence. Thus compelled, in spite
of themselves, to preserve a certain decent political
consistency, and thereby incapacitated from doing
justice to Ireland otherwise than in a languid,
reluctant, retail spirit—for Sir ROBERT PEEL'S pro-
jected remedial measures, though they will, no
doubt, be productive of good, will, we suspect, not
go to the root of the evil—no wonder the Tories
are alarmed at the prospect of a compact, which will
not only render it additionally difficult for them to
conduct affairs in the sister country after their own
favourite fashion a little modified and liberalised;
but, very probably, compel them to abandon the
task of Irish legislation altogether; arid make way
for those who are more competent, and more willing,
to administer justice in a right spirit. Alluding to
this compact, a Whig Contemporary remarks :—" In
what manner, or to what extent, a combination
of objects may be practicable between the
Liberals of England and of Ireland, is a
point on which we are unable to express
anything but hopes. It must depend upon the
animus and eventual designs of either party. One
thing is very certain, however, that no undertaking,
no co-operation between the English and Irish Libe-
rals is possible upon any basis that implies approba-
tion of Repeal, or of Federalism, or of rotatory Par-
liaments. Sir Ronzar PEEL, indeed, the Irish Re-
peelers may be able to force into a compromise, but
the English Liberals will never consent to be a party
to it. We should, indeed, deeply deplore any move-
ment on the part of the Irish Liberal party which
would range them in hostility to their friends on this
side the channel. But it is right to say that this pro-
ret of Federalism—this most formidable creation of
Tory Government—would find its most strenuous
opponents in the English Liberal party." From
the spirit that pervades the above passage, and,
indeed, from the tone of the article gene-
rally. , we infer that our Whig Contemporary has
put it forth, with the direct approbation of his party,
as a sort of feeler to try how
far (-1 may be
disposed to renew his alliance with English Whiggery.
If our surmise be correct, we do not think it at all
likely that it will be a successful ruse, for the condi-
tions which it lays down, as indispensable to the coin-
Pact, are such as the great Irish Agitator can never
dream of listening to. Possibly, so far as he himself
is concerned, Mr. O'CONNELL might not object to re-
new his connexion with the English Whigs, on the
terms laid down In the passage we have quoted; but
eituated as he is with his countrymen, pledged to

do his utmost to further the cause of Repeal or
Federalism, it is wholly out of the question that he
can surrender either of these measures, much less both,
as our Contemporary plainly tells him he must do, if
he would wish to be patronised by Whiggery. All
things considered, therefore, the Tories have not
much cause for apprehension. A direct offensive and
defensive alliance can never be entered into between
O'CONNELL and the English Liberal party, for the
latter will not support either Federalism or Repeal,
and the former cannot abandon, though he can never
hope to carry, either. Toryism, therefore, has now
much in its power as regards Ireland. It can never,
it is true, with the principles it professes, ob-
tain the full and entire confidence of the
sister country, but it can at least make
itself more popular than it has yet been, by bringing
forward just and conciliatory measures, lowering the
tone of arrogant pretension and authority that it has
so long adopted ; and conceding much, if its narrow
theory of legislation will not permit it to concede all,
that Ireland has a right to expect from an English
Government. We have little doubt that the reme-
dial measures with which Sir ROBERT PEEL is now
reported to be busy, will be such as will be advan-
tageous to the sister country; but we are by no
means sanguine as to their comprehensive character,
and fear that they will only have the effect of warding
off his " difficulty" for a season.

So lately as the sth instant it became our melan-
choly duty to call the attention of the public to the
catastrophe by which, only a day or two previously,
one hundred people had been sacrificed—in an instant
of time—at the Haswell Colliery ! With profound
regret we have since had to announce another dis-
aster of the same nature, though (fortunately) not
attended with the sacrifice of human life to the same
appalling extent as occurred at Haswell. But, on
the night of Monday last, at Coxlodge Colliery, near
N ewcastle-upon-Tyne, an explosion took place, by
which five persons, within the workings, were se-
riously injured, of whom two are so much maimed
that no hopes can be reasonably entertained of their
recovery; one of these (13.amnaznoE) having bean
blown against a tub, by the explosive force, with such
violence as to fracture his thigh bone; the other
(CoLuNs) having been violently felled to the ground,
and remained there for no less than two hours, in an
atmosphere saturated with the deleterious " choke
damp"—that noxious and inflammable gas, the escape
of which is the grand agent of these terrible cala-
mities. From the best accounts hitherto obtained, it
would seem that, at the time this explosion took
place, there were, in the mine, seventy-nine men
and boys variously employed in the several districts
into which the " workings" are divided. " Shifters," as
they are called, had been engaged, in the morning
and afternoon, clearing away where the coal hewers
were to get to their work at night. Five of these
coal hewers were waiting, to commence these opera-
tions, till BROWN, the " deputy," should have ex-
amined the workings and reported " all right." Two of
the sufferers, ANDERSON and COLLINS, had concluded
their day's work as shifters, when they were re-
quested by the " deputy" to assist him in removing
some tramway pieces out of the "goaf," as "it was
likely to fall." This fact, and the one which follows,
are well calculated to excite a lively idea of the
fearful hazards to which these poor pitmen are ex-
posed. They went with the " deputy," but had to
return immediately, as the "goaf," or gallery, was
already " working," that is, creeping and heaving !
BROWN, the deputy, although these unfortunate
shifters had been working with proper safety lamps,
committed, it would seem, the unpardonable impru-
dence of carrying a naked candle to the " stenting,"
from whence, if from any point, the jet of gas would
come, "to see if the place," as he said, " was safe
for the hewers to operate upon, whom he had in
waiting, to put on." It never seems to have occurred
to him to consider what must be the consequence of
his action, should the place not prove safe. Although
expressly cautioned by ANDERSON to take his candle
back, "as there was danger, if the goaf fell," he per-
sisted in carrying it on to this stenting, where the
gas actually had formed, and now ignited with an explo-
sion which was felt throughout the entire mine, but
most providentially exhausted itself within a hundred
yards of the area of ventilation in the mine, from
whence the stream :of air is subdivided and distri-
buted through the different districts or flats of the
colliery. Had it travelled on to this place, says the
report, and blown down the erections by means of
which this distribution is effected, " every man in
the pit at the time would have been killed." As it
was, two of the coal hewers (ANDERSON and KENT),
who awaited BROWN'S return, were most seriously
injured, as already stated ; COLLINS, a shifter, was
severely burnt, and with BROWN, the deputy (al-
though this latter, after the gas had fired, ran away
so quickly as to reach the shaft in safety), is not ex-
pected to survive.
In a former article we quoted, at length, the
preamble of one of the burked Bills of last session,
called "A Bill for establishing District Registers of
all Mining Operations in England and Wales." We
remarked, that had it happily have been passed into
law, there was every probability, that by means of
the scientific supervision which its clauses went to
provide, the Haswell casualty would not have oc-
curred. Precisely the same remark applies to the
unhappy accident we are now considering. The
Coxlodge Colliery belongs to Messrs. BELL, BRAND-
LING, and Co., and has always been deemed a very
well ventilated one. But, if we may credit the state-
ment published, recenti facto, in the Miners' Advo-
cate, it would appear that the deputy, BELL, to whose
rashness or incompetency the disaster appears to have
been so mainly attributable, had been brought up to
the plough, and was neither accustomed., nor compe-
tent, to the due discharge of the responsible-post he
tilled. If this be so, a stronger case could not have
been raised to demonstrate the necessity fpr carrying
out the general propositions of the Bill in question, to
the full extent of their scope and spirit. It is evi-
dently indispensable that these mines should be con-
stantly visited by duly qualified members or officers
of a Commission, composed of scientific and practical
men, well acquainted with the natural laws which
regulate the generation, and the phenomena which
announce the presence, of these noxious vapours. It
is as evidently requisite, with a due regard to the de-
mands, in the first place, of a humane and provident
policy, and in the second, of the owners of capital
Ind property already sunk, or about to be invested, in
such extensive works, that a careful, accurate, and
periodically attested register of every preceding
week's operations should be organized and main-
Itined, to be copied and deposited as Parliament may
lirect, for the purpose of supplying the information
thus recorded, to all interested parties, as generally as
,nay be practicable. We should then cease to hear of
judds" being removed—of old workings being de-
stroyed, or new ones commenced—with all the liabili-
Lies thus fatally attaching to such operations, when
not directed by scientific skill, or controlled by prac-
tical experience and sagacity. Where so large an
mount of human life, so valuable a supply of perilous
labour and intrepid enterprise are involved, as are vo-
luntarily entombed in our collieries and mines for
long protracted periods, it is the duty of the Legis-
lature to protect the workman against the avarice of
the master, on the one hand, or the incapacity of his
deputy on the other. We impute nothing like ava-
rice to the respected owners of Coxlodge. We have
no wish to press the presumption of misconduct
against their wounded servant, BROWN. But, as a
general principle, the first object of Parliament
should be to economise the lives of the parties whose
labour alone gives value to the products of our mines;
its second, to apportion the charge of accomplishing
that beneficent end on the mining property of the
district within which it is to be accomplished.

The Madrid journals state that the Senate and
Deputies met again on the 11th, but their proceedings
were confined chiefly to the appointment of Com-
mittees and verifying the qualifications of Members.
The capital remained quiet. A letter from Saragossa,
however, published in the Castellano, states that sedi-
tious placards had been found posted in different parts
of that city, demanding the head of General NAR-
veizz, and of the recently elected deputies, Messrs.
QUINT° and ORTEGA.

The Three per Cents. were done on the Madrid
Bourse of the 11th inst., at 26 cash, and 26i at sixty
days ; the Fives at 20 cash, and 20i at sixty days.

We give, in another part of The Sun, from the
Journal des Debats. the new tariff just issued by the
Belgian Government, and regret to find that it is so
little favourable to this country. This, coupled with