No one could take exception to the terms of the
Labour motion on the Gresford Report. The Government did not attempt to resist its demand for immediate and effective measures to ensure maximum safety. Mr. Grenfell, who opened the debate, always speaks with dignity. On this occasion his first-hand acquaintance with the mining industry and the fact,that he had been present throughout the inquiry made his speech more than usually impressive and convincing. Captain. Crookshank was not entirely happy in reply, his remarks savouring too much of the departmental apologia. He made the point, which is borne out by the Report, that breaches of safety regulations are frequently acquiesced in, if nor actually connived at, by the workers themselves. As was expected, the most powerful indictment came from Sir Stafford Cripps. He attacked the inspectorate and showed that in many cases the inspectors had been ignorant of what they should certainly have known. He went on to emphasise that the tightening up of the regulations and their due enforcement has been made essential by the development of machine-mining. Sir Stafford complained of the extremely small attendance on the Government benches when a tragedy of this magnitude was under discussion. His complaint was justified, though the fault was not confined to Govern- ment supporters. At 5.3o p.m. the attendance in the Chamber was as follows : Government parties, It out of 428 ; Labour, 22 out of 157 ; Liberals, 7 out of 21.
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