o the outrage committed on Martin Morris,
having received threatening notices to resign their contracts on
pain of death, your board deemed it advisable, means not having
been yet devised for affording due protection to the men employed,
to order that the works should be suspended on the 20th December;
and the works have been suspended accordingly. The working of South
Balinaslick Colliery has been suspended for the same reason--Martin
Morris having had charge of the underground works in both
collieries. If your board and its agents in the management of those
works had neglected the moral duties of such an establishment as
yours in this important district, some excuse might be offered by
the Guild for the outrage committed--the first, however, your board
has had to complain of during twenty years that your works have
been in operation; but the following facts prove that the company's
duties have been duly and literally attended to. The men are
promptly paid weekly--contractors as well as daily labourers. The
contractors at Earlshill, at the period in which the outrage was
committed, earned on an average 2s. 6d. per day, some so much as
3s. The average rate earned at the entire of the company's works at
the same period was 2s. 1d. per day, whilst the customary rate of
wages paid to farm labourers in the district is but from 8d. to
10d. per day. When circumstances admitted, houses of a better
description than usual in the district have been erected for the
men; schools have been provided at the principal works, and several
of the children and adults educated. They are now employed as
stewards and clerks. When it has been necessary to levy fines for
inattention, the amount has been uniformly applied, at this season
of the year, in providing comforts for the deserving men's
families. In times of scarcity, good and cheap food has been
provided, and distributed at low prices; and at all times the men
and their families have the advantage of good medical aid when
required. Under those circumstances your board feel confident that
the perpetrators of the outrage on Martin Morris--a man deservedly
raised from the ranks to a place of trust in his native
village--will not be permitted to remain unpunished; and that the
projected extension of the works will soon