1873 - Old Forge Coal Mines

INSPECTORS OF MINES. 217
ping or supports, or from an explosion of gases within, the results to every
operative inside would be fatal. Little difference indeed would it make to
them how they entered, whether by an inclined plane as through a slope or
by a perpendicular descent as down a shaft or by a horizontal passageway,
as along a tunnel. No matter by what sort of road they had come
in, suffering and death would surely, if not swiftly ensue.
Now it is suggested that the "Mine Ventilation Law" was enacted for tin
specific object of rendering such a calamity impossible. Very true its
title "An Act providing for the health and safety of persons employed in
coal mines" imports that design, but the construction which courts give to
acts of Assembly must always be predicted rather upon their terms than
upon their titles, particularly when the former point out distinctly on the
one hand, delimit on the other, the extent of their application^ It may
have been and probably was a legislative oversight that the prohibition
against operating a coal mine, whether by shaft or slope, until a second
outlet was provided, did not apply to a mine operated by a tunnel ; but
the act as it stands leaves no room for conjecture as to the scope of its application.
The interdicted mine is that "worked by or through a shaft or slope.'
Nothing whatever is said about a mine worked by or through a tunnel.
Indeed the term "tunnel" occurs but once in the whole act, and then it has
relation to the manner of making a second opening "through coal." Thus
"if a tunnel or shaft will be required for the additional opening, work upon
the same shall commence immediately after the passage of tins act, and
continue until its final completion, with not less than three shifts in each
twenty-four hours ; and as many hands may be emploj^ed as can be put to
work to advantage, the Inspector to be judge as to the least number of
hands to be engaged per shift."
So far, therefore, as operating a mine by a tunnel is concerned, the
statutory prohibition does not apply, even though the Legislature may
have designed that the prohibition should extend to all mining operations,
whether carried on through a shaft, slope or tunnel, until a second outlet,
had been provided
; } r et not having done so, but on the contrary having
specified, particularly in their interdict only such mines as were "through
a shaft or slope," clearly we have power to grant the prayer contained in
this bill. If a casus omissus has occurred in the statutes, we cannot supply
it. Our province is to administer not to make the law. The bill is
dismissed at the cost of the complainant. II. W. Palmer for complainant
Hand & Post, contra.