BAN FIREWORKS

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 36, 6 November 1922, Page 9

BAN FIREWORKS

A GRAVE RISK FOR NO GOOD VIEWS OF FIRE BRIGADE SUPERINTENDENT Following up Inspector Mcllveney’s remarks on the danger of fireworks in the city, Superintendent H. Tait, of the Wellington Fire Brigade, informed • a Dominion interviewer last week that m his considered opinion fireworks of any kind should not be allowed in the city. It was, he declared, only in antiquated, places like Wellington that they were permitted to be sold and exploded at all. In no large town or city in America was ,the sale of fireworks permitted, and it was the same in Melbourne and Sydney. Two years ago they hod approached the Minister to absolutely prohibit the sale of fireworks at this or any other time, of the year, but he was not very much interested, and said that the City Council could achieve what it wished through its own by-laws. That was not altogether the case, as the by-law only provided for a license fee (ss. for every £5 worth stocked), and tho very fact that a license was provided for, established the business. ‘As a boy I confess I liked setting off crackers. <snd I don’t wish to be narrow in tho matter,” said Mr. Tait, “but in those days half the city was comprised of open spaces, such as Johnny Martin’s paddock, Howe’s paddock, Pearce’s paddock, and the “Rec.,” and no great fiarm was done. But now Wellington is one of the most congestedof cities, and it is simply folly fo allow children to play with fireworks, which might easily result in a £lO,OOO loss, and it is nil for no good.” "You must remember the fire which destroyed the big timber yards in Taranaki Street. That was caused by the burning fragments of rockets on Guy Fawkes night. Only the other day the outbreak in the cellar of the Marist Brothers’ school at Newtown was attributed by the brothers to fireworks.

“Not even on the Fourth of July in America are fireworks displayed in a city. They have realised that watching a few blue and red sparks i's not enough compensation for the risk of a conflagration, which might destroy a section of the citv, possibly with loss of life. Then again, indulgent parents who hand out sixpences for crackers do not realise the number of children who have lost their eyesight or been maimed through playing with fireworks. | '•Some 90 per cent, of th? fireworks ®n sale tins year in Wellington are from China, and by the total prohibition of their sale no British mamlfacturer would suffer apnreciably. Displays of fireworks under proper safeguards are all very well, but to permit any boy to fire off what he likes in tho streets of tho citv is simply stupid, for the gravity of the risk attendant upon' such freedom cannot be exaggerated.”