Fire Precautions.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20484, 10 December 1934, Page 6

Fire Precautions.

Dear Sir, —Unless the fireman concerned was unnecessarily brusque in requesting the Duke of Gloucester to put his cigarette out at Toowoomba, and we may assume from the messages that he was not so, I fail to see why the Fire Brigade Board should forward an apology to the Roj-al visitor. It is officially explained that the fireman had orders not to permit smoking in the hall. If that was so, he would have been failing in his duty if he had permitted anybody to smoke, and for my part I think that the Duke will be in a quandary when he receives the apology. What is he to say to it? There is only one thing he can say, and it is this, that no apology is due in respect to the action of the fireman if he was carrying out his duty. The Empire would not be great if duty did not remain the watchword for evervbody who is entrusted with the safety of life, whether in a dance hall or on an ocean liner. The question, therefore, remains whether the Duke is to accept an apology from the Fire Brigade Board for having decreed that th’ere should be no smoking in the hall, and here again the Duke may ask who made him a judge or ruler in matters of this kind. There is no Higher Power that makes a Royal cigarette or matchbox exempt from danger, and the Duke himself would laugh at the idea implied in an apology on the ground that he should be allowed to do what others were forbidden to do where public safety was concerned. I think the whole incid'nt is priceless, but the board's apology only makes confusion worse confounded.—l am, etc., NOT TOO GREEN TO BURN.