社会舆论与19世纪上半期英国的煤矿监管

Public opinion and the colliery regulation in Great Britain during the first half of the 19^th century

19世纪初以来,英国煤矿的爆炸事故日渐频发。报刊杂志的密集报道以及专业人士的奔走呼号,使煤矿安全问题很快成为一个备受关注的公共话题。关于煤矿的社会舆论发生了多次转变,从最初主张自发改良煤矿的安全生产状况转变到禁止煤矿雇佣女工与童工,再到要求政府对煤矿进行安全监察。社会舆论制造的巨大压力迫使政府不再固守自由放任的传统,开始对煤矿进行强制干预。议会通过了1842年《矿山法》和1850年《煤矿监察法》,不但管制煤矿的工人雇佣情况,而且监督煤矿的安全生产。虽然这些只是初步的监管举措,但为日后政府积极主动地改善煤矿安全生产状况打下了坚实的基础。

Since the beginning of the 19th century,an increasing number of explosion accidents have occurred in the British collieries.Newspapers’intensive reports and professional people’s calling for concern made coal mine safety issues quickly become a public topic.Public opinion on coal mines transformed several times,from initially claiming spontaneous improvement of coal mine safety production conditions to demanding a statute of prohibiting colliery owners from hiring women and children and asking the government to inspect the collieries.The great pressure from the public opinion forced the government to no longer stick to the laissez-faire tradition and begin to intervene in coal mines.The Parliament passed the Coal Mines Act in 1842 and the Act for Inspection of Coal Mines in 1850,which not only governed the employment of collieries,but also inspected the safety production of coal mines.Although they were preliminary regulations,they laid a solid foundation for the government to initiatively improve working conditions of coal mines in the future.