MR HOLMAN AGAIN

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XLII, Issue 6121, 8 June 1914, Page 5

MR HOLMAN AGAIN

I {l\-.r Press .Association —Copyright.) ; Ottawa, June I ; Hon. .J. I>. Ilazpnu 'Minister for Marine) announced in Parliament that the Empress of Ireland inquiry would begin on June I 1- at < v hiebec or Mwutrrai. Lord Mersrv, who prosified at the Court of liMjuirv into the loss ot the Titant<\ is expected from England on tii<- loth inst. The tissesssoi'i appointed to assist the commission include : Commander Cabomo, of the Koyal Naval Reserve; Professor Welsh, of .Newcastle, Eng-' land : Captain Demers and EngineerCorn mauder Howe, both of the Canadian service. ; .Svdiiev, June o' ]

.Mr W. A. JLuiiiKin, Premier, replying to Canadian resentment of his remarks concerning the Empress of Ireland disaster, maintained his view that the emjuirv ought not to be conlined to a few unfortunate seamen or oiiicers, but ought to extend to those in chief responsibility. Where commercial men agree to send the public from Canada to Europe, and as a matter of fact send them from Canada to ihc next world, that alone was suflicient ground for putting those men on their trial Jle did not say they

; ought to l)e convicted. If iliey can show —us is effusively assured by press backers —that the ship represented the last word in naval architecture, then the trial would not hurt them, but until they show that the fact remains that the calamity occurred under their directions to men and women who trusted themselves at their invitation and a prima facie case is against them. Mr Hoi man further held up the Cuuar.l Company's boast that they never lose a passenger or a letter as an illustration of what naval skill could accomplish by securing safety to the travelling public, when those powers were directed primarily in maintaining public safety aud not in inflating dividends.