LAXITY ALLEGED

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 83, 4 October 1929, Page 11

LAXITY ALLEGED

PUBLIC WORKS ACCIDENTS

HANDLING. OF EXPLOSIVES

* (By Telegraph.) . (Special to "The Evening Post.")

DUNEDIN, This Day.

The regrettable frequency of accidents on Public Works during last year was the subject of comment by Mr. A. Cook, national president of the New Zealand Alliance of Labour, who denounced the apparent laxity in the conduct of works carried out under the Public Works Department. Mr. Cook Emphasised the haphazard manner in which <the ordinary precautions regarding the handling of explosives wero allowed.to bo set aside. He instanced a recent accident which occurred.on the Lake Waikaremoan'a road works, when five Public Works men were injured, one seriously, by an- explosion of gelignite, which they were warming beforo an open fire. Another case of premature explosion took place on the same works a few weeks previously, stated Mr. Cook, when a man who was tamping frozen gelignite into the rocks was blown to pieces. The danger of working with frozen gelignite \yas W ell known to all men who had had any experience with explosives, . and to eliminate this danger a regulation warming pan was available in which to thaw tho gelignite. The placing of large numbers of men on Public Workß where they had full access to explosives, in the handling of which they were entirely ignorant, was denounced by Mr. Cook as ono of tho_ chief factors -in the fretiuency of accidents. / Ho blamed the cngineer-in-chargo of the Public AVorks Department for alleged failure to issuo instructions with roferonco to tho handling of explosives to tho Departmental officers in charge of tho men on tho works.

"During the past twelvo months," stated Mr. Cook, "there wore more accidents proportionately than during tho previous five years, and the largo number of unskilled men on relief works, combined with tho failure to give deiinito instructions to tho men regarding the proper use of explosives are the principal factors iv this desperato state of affairs. Unless stricter precautions are taken to ensuro that no men not qualified to handle explosives are allowed access to tho magazines, the frequonoy of accidents of such a nature will in no way diminish."