The Hawera Star. THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 16, 1926. THE RAILWAY DISASTER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 16 September 1926, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 16, 1926. THE RAILWAY DISASTER.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki. ■ Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Wnverlev Mokoia, Whakamara, Obangai, ’Mexeinore, Eraser Head and Ararata.

The terrible disaster on the New South Wales railway system loses none of its horror through the. apparently accidental -nature of the cause. There have been worse railway wrecks, but few, if any, of them in the Southern Hemisphere—certainly none io Australia or New Zealand—so that the Dominion is naturally closely touched by the sorrow Mutt followed so fast upon the runaway wool trucks. To those who mourn and to those whose bodies will carry the cruel marks of the accident until death —and to some of them, it is to be feared, death, will mean release from suffering—the sympathy of all New Zealand will be extended. Yet the blackest moments of life arc not without, the soft- lights of kindliness hnd unselfishness; and there stand out. from the record of this awful cafasrophe .the courage and fortitude of the

stricken, their anxiety for those who might be’ -worse hurt than they, and the calm, methodical rescue work of the uninjured. Nothing can lessen the grief of 'the bereaved, but prompt and self-sacrificing attention to the. injured probably saved the lives of many now in hospital. That which was could not be altered; but it might have been far worse had panic seized the company. Much is written about the instinct of self-preservation; it is only an instinct. An animal strives to protect and itself;, a mother animal will shield her offspring with her own body. That feeling which prompts thought of and. service for others marks man off from the beasts, and it. is good, to know that man can be true to his higher sphere in the, supreme crises of his.life. “For God’s sake go and help the others, ’’ was the behest of one passenger who was dragged out terribly injured. So long as men and women think first of ‘ ‘ the others,” such happenings as this, awful though they be, yet might be worse. Also, while it can bring no relief to present sufferers, there seems a likelihood that railway passengers in future will be protected further as- an outcome /of the accident.. Had the trucks which caused the damage been fitted with an automatic braking device, their wild career would have been impossible. Reports from Melbourne indicate that this safeguard is now to be provided on the Victorian railways, and doubtless other States will follow that example. Railway travel- is wonderfully safe when all things are considered, but it is not yet so safe that any controlling authority can neglect to fit the latest and best safety devices to all parts of its system. The unfortunate thing is that too often lives must be sacrificed to demonstrate ’the need for additional safeguards.