HANDLING EXPLOSIVES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 30, 4 August 1923, Page 14

HANDLING EXPLOSIVES

.'NARROW ESCAPES IN LIVER

POOL.

The narrow escape of Liverpool from being blown up is a risk to which that port was frequently subjected during the strenuous days of the war, although few citizens fully realised the dangers they were then running—else they might not have slept so comfortably, says a correspondent of the "Manchester "Guardian." The loading and unloading of explosives is an operation always attended with considerable danger, but the danger Incomes much more acute when the handling takes place in busy docks and crowded centres of population. Before the war no goods of an explosive or combustible nature were allowed to be moved without a police permit and the taking of special precautions; even cases of matches could not be moved from rail to ship without previous notice being given to the dockmaster and the police. Explosive material arriving by rail for shipment had to lie at a special railway siding outside the city, and wait there until the steamer was ready to receive the consignment, which she did either just as she was leaving the dock at the last moment or whilst lying in the river. Even then the explosive could only be transported to the ship after working hours, when everything was quiet. These restrictions were rigidly enforced, and heavy fines were liable to be incurred if they were not respected. During the war, however, these restrictions went by the board, and steamers from across the Atlantic, with hundreds of tons of ammunition on board, used to arrive in the docks, berth alongside other vessels, and discharge their dangerous cargoes just like so many boxes of bacon. Fortunately no mishap ever occurred, but now that the war is over most people feel that even the military authorities should be made amenable, to the old-time precautions "in the interests oi life and property."-