BLAME FOR DISASTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15770, 19 November 1914, Page 4

BLAME FOR DISASTER.

CONDITIONS AT HUNTLY.

STATEMENT BY MR. MASSEY.

INSINUATIONS REPUDIATED.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —FBESS association.]

Dunedin, Wednesday. The Huntly disaster was referred to by the Prime Minister in the course of a speech at Sooth Dunedin to-night.

Regarding tho Huntly disaster, said Mr. Massey, many mean things had been said during the present campaign. One of the meanest things he had noticed in the politics of the country was an attempt to make the present Government responsible for the disaster at Huntly. This was one of the meanest and most contemptible and cowardly and dastardly things that he knew of. (Uproar, with cheers and hooting.) Huntly had been in Ms district lor six years. He had been there many times, and had been on good terms with the people. During that time he had always heard the mine spoken of as one of the safest in New Zealand. There was never a hint of danger in connection with Ralph's mine, but it was said by people who wished to make capital out of the disaster and to shoot at the Government from the shoulders of dead men, into ¥ the Bill whidl wafl introduced in 1912 had passed the disaster would not have occurred. This was wrong. When i*. came U P m the House the man who knew probably more about mines than any other man there— man on the other side of the House, and that man was the Hon Roderick McKenzie—said, when the suggestion was made, that it was absolute nonsence. If the Rill had been passed the accident would have occurred just the same. (Applause and dissent.) An independent commission had been set up with a district magistrate for chairman, and to it was appointed a man as member who had at one time been president of the Federation of Labour, Mr. Dowdray. A Voice : He's a Red Fed. Mr. Massey.- He's a decent man. Continuing, the Prime Minister said that another man had also been appointed who was mine manager on the west coast, and was acknowledged to be a good man. The commission brought in a very lengthy report, and tlrere was not a single suggestion in the report laid before Parliament that the Government or the Department was in any way to blame. The Government was going to sift this matter to the very bottom. (Interruption.) It would be thoroughly sifted in the supreme Court. They would hear of steps being taken within the next day or two, and the blame would be placed on the right shoulders, and they would then be able to know who was at fault and who was responsible for the unfortunate accident. According to the evidence at the inquiry, the accident was caused through a man going into the old workings, where there was gas, with a naked light, and this exploded the coal gas right through the mine. He did not mean to say that there was no negligence, and that no one was to blame, but those were the facts. He would just like to say this, in conclusion : The man who would suggest that the Government of the cuontry was responsible for the accident was not fit to associate with decent men, much less— (Uproar.) There were no half measures abut him, continued the speaker. They got the facts when he spoke. (Uproar.) So long as he was a Minister of the Crown, and that was likely to be for a long while — The rest of the speaker's words were lost to the audience, and a section of the crowd "counted him out," while another section responded with three cheers.