Note 548 — OF NUISANCES, LEGALLY, MEDICALLY, AND CHEMICALLY CONSIDERED.

It is impossible to question the justice and policy of this maxim as a general principle of legislation; “Salus Populi Suprema Lex,”—but there are circumstances which ought to exempt certain establishments from the operation of the common law of nuisances; we allude to those grand national works for smelting ores, which could not be closed without fatally affecting our national prosperity, and compromising the fate of the Arts themselves. No consideration, however, ought to admit them within the range of a great city, or a populous district; but where they have acquired a kind of right to toleration by time and necessity, in a remote place, they ought to continue in the enjoyment of their advantages without disturbance; but in return for such an immunity, the public has a right to expect every exertion on the part of the proprietors, in order to obviate, as far as in them lies, the diffusion of the fumes, throughout the neighbourhood, by improving the construction of the furnaces, and by the adoption of such chemical and mechanical expedients as may be capable of diminishing the evil. We are led to these observations in consequence of learning with regret that attempts have been frequently made to compel the proprietors of the Hafod copper works, before alluded to, to abandon them; and while the present sheet was in the press, we learnt that the Grand Jury had found a true bill against one of these establishments. We shall in consequence offer a few remarks, with a view of shewing the necessity that exists of introducing a protecting clause into the law of nuisances, in favour of certain established mining and smelting districts; and we must here observe, that the inhabitants which congregate in the vicinity of great manufactories of this description, are always, in the first instance, allured to the spot, by the prospect of gain; and it was not to be expected that persons who have been thus aggrandised, should, as soon as their riches confer independence and fastidiousness upon them, turn round and revile as insufferable and dangerous, that very power to which alone they owe any personal consequence to which they may now be entitled. But the strongest arguments will be found in the great importance of these works in a national and commercial point of view; and on this account we shall present the reader with some statistical arguments of considerable weight, viz: The quantity of coals consumed in the copper works in South Wales, and exported in the vessels which convey the ore from Cornwall to them, is calculated at 200,000 chaldrons annually; and the amount paid for it to the collieries at from £100,000 to £110,000. The number of persons employed in raising and delivering it is not less than 1,500. The number of persons employed in the smelting works is about 1,500, and the yearly amount of wages paid to them is not less than £50,000. The value of the materials consumed annually in these works may be taken at £20,000. The amount paid for the freight of ore and materials may be stated at £25,000. The number of vessels employed in the conveyance of the same may be about 150, and supposing them to be manned by five seamen on the average, they give occupation to 750 mariners. Thus a sum of not less than two hundred thousand pounds sterling is annually circulated in Glamorganshire and the adjoining county, and employment given to 3750 individuals.

If the families and dependants of these persons are taken into the amount, a population of 12,000 souls at least derive their support from the smelting establishments. The consequences which would result from depriving so great a number of persons of the means of subsistence may be more easily conceived than described. These estimates refer only to the mere direct expenditure of the smelting works and their immediate dependants—the consequences of the stoppage of these works to the immense number of persons employed in the mines in Cornwall—between 50 and 60,000 souls—would be completely ruinous.

These considerations it might be supposed are sufficiently apalling to deter those who are engaged in the present measures carrying on against one of the principal smelting companies by prosecution: an object which is likely to be productive of consequences so destructive of the welfare of thousands, in the annihilation of a trade of the utmost general importance to the country, whether as relating to its internal or external affairs, to its manufactories, its colonies, or its ships: a trade in which upwards of two millions of pounds sterling are embarked. That it ever should enter into the mind of any human being to prosecute measures which could by any possibility lead to consequences so disastrous, is almost inconceivable, and the only excuse that can possibly be offered for them (if excuse it can be called) is, that they are so entirely occupied by the consideration of their personal convenience and fancied interest, as to be incapable of forming a just conception of the momentous business they have undertaken.